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Thursday March 28, 2024

Faulty transmission line renders Chashma N-Plant less efficient

By Munawar Hasan
September 11, 2021
Faulty transmission line renders Chashma N-Plant less efficient

LAHORE: The faulty power transmission line has rendered the Chashma Nuclear Plant (CHASHNUP) less efficient, causing a loss of millions of units and counting.

The power evacuation from CHASHNUP has been affected since July 31, 2021. Amid inclement conditions, the transmission line got damaged primarily due to poor quality of work, alleged sources. Since then, one of the units of the Chashma Nuclear Plant is currently producing about 40mw less, causing a loss of millions of units due to man-made deficiency, which is likely to cost billions to the national kitty in the months to come.

Nuclear power has been touted as workhorse in energy mix due to its ability to provide constant and reliable electricity to millions of users as the base-load, something that is markedly useful, durable and dependable to meet high demand. That is why nuclear energy has been rated as having the highest capacity factor of over 92 per cent among all forms of electricity generation.

However, it is a sheer negligence on the part of the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) as the transmission line got damaged in the fifth year of its operation, cutting one of the CHASHNUP units off the national grid. Later, as a makeshift arrangement, the grid utility could not manage to disperse all of power generation from the most dependable electricity generation plant of the country, reducing supply by about 40mw out of 300MW due to transmission constraints.

Billions of rupees have already been spent additionally on the transmission line but to no avail and now the national exchequer has to bear a loss of billions too due to the failure in evacuating full load during the months to come.

Moreover, one unit having the generation capacity of 300mw of CHASHNUP is already shutdown since September 7, 2021 due to refueling, which is expected to last for 50 days. Most worryingly, the breakdown of power transmission lines hindering electricity generation from CHASHNUP has not happened for the first time. In May 2018, all four Nuclear Power Plants at Chashma, also known as C1, C2, C3, C4, knocked out of operation as NTDC lines tripped abruptly. Similarly, in November 2017, short-circuit in the transmission line also led to shutting down of Chashma Nuclear Plants. At that time, smog was blamed for tripping, forcing the closure of all Chashma Nuclear Power Plants.

The NTDC spokesperson admitted that while the Chashma-Bannu transmission line got damaged, power from CHASHNUP is being evacuated from other transmission line links. The coast escalation to the tune of 130 per cent was also not denied by the NTDC. Regarding increased costs associated with the construction of this transmission line, the spokesperson said the revision of the contract price was mentioned in the bidding document as all types of foundation rates are quoted as reference cost. He added that as the detailed soil investigation is part of the contract, so the drawings for construction of foundations are issued according to the results of soil investigations. These drawings are on actual site conditions and thus the price of project varies accordingly and it is a routine SOP.

As the route of this transmission line is in the close proximity to the Chashma Barrage and high water table appeared and thus change in foundation types was imperative, resulting in increase in the contract price and thus increased cost of the line. However, this price as per actual work was duly approved by the competent authority after proper scrutiny.

The NTDC spokesperson insisted that it is not correct to associate collapse/damage of transmission line and its towers to the poor quality. Rather the transmission line has been in smooth and reliable operation since Oct 2016 withstanding numerous rains and wind storms during the past five-year period. The actual cause was the unprecedented rains and flood in the area that caused the transmission line to collapse.