LAHORE:
Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) has awarded civil works contract worth Rs936.29 million through international competitive bidding to Technicon Enterprises for the second rehabilitation of Warsak Hydroelectric Power Station.
The authority aims to regain the power station’s generation capacity, which has decreased to 193 megawatts from 243MW due to ageing factor as its electro-mechanical equipment has become old.
The rehabilitation work is planned to be carried out with approved PC-I cost of Rs22.25 billion to overcome the ageing problem, regain the 50MW capacity loss with reliable annual energy generation of 1.14 billion units, upgrade and modernise the old system and achieve another life cycle of 30 to 40 years.
Wapda is implementing a least-cost energy generation plan to add low-priced hydel electricity to the system. In addition to constructing new projects, it is also rehabilitating and upgrading its ageing hydel power stations, including Warsak, under the plan.
The contract was signed by Wapda General Manager (Hydel) Development Nadeem Iqbal and Technicon Enterprises CEO Iqbal Yunas.
The first phase of the Warsak Dam and Hydel Power Station was completed in 1960-61 consisting of the dam, irrigation tunnels, four power-generating units with cumulative capacity of 160MW, a switchyard and a transmission line.
In the second phase, two more generating units of about 83MW were added in 1980-81 to raise the installed capacity of the power station to 243MW.
The first rehabilitation was carried out from 1996-2006 to stabilise the civil structure and recover the lost generation of about 70MW.
