When the 878 km Matiari–Lahore high-voltage direct current line went into operation early July, it became the single most important infrastructure scheme in Pakistan’s ailing power sector.
The line will inject some 660kV into Pakistan’s national grid , with the hope of ridding the region of chronic power outages.
Financed and built – at a cost of ca $1.7bn – as part of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) by the State Grid Corporation of China, the line was completed within three years since ground-breaking in 2018.
The SGC China will operate it for the next 25 years.
More than 1,300 Chinese and 6,500 Pakistani workers were employed on the project, only one of the many electricity generation projects. They have all helped in taken the installed capacity to 37GW against the peak demand of only 25GW. Of Pakistan’s 220 million people, close to 60 million lack direct to the national electricity grid in 2018, when the project was kicked off.
The national grid, comprising mostly old transmission lines and aging transformers, can nevertheless handle only 22000 MW of power, resulting in chronic blackouts and load shedding, particularly in the summer when demand peaks in soaring temperatures.
In January 2021, the entire country suffered a massive blackout after a fault at a power station in the southern Sindh province caused the grid to lose its 50Hz frequency, which caused power stations throughout the country to close down.
Against this backdrop, the latest Matiari-Lahore stands out as the single largest and the single most important infrastructure scheme in the power sector.
Zhang Jianhua, head of China’s National Energy Administration, told those present at the ceremony that the Matiari-Lahore line was the first large-scale transmission project of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). and would provide “solid assurance” for power transmission in the south and power supply in the north.
Speaking about the economic corridor in general, Azhar added: “The CPEC is of utmost importance for Pakistan. It will enable the country to enhance industrial production, upgrade energy and communication infrastructure and improve connectivity within the region.”
Note: excerpted from Global Construction Review
