Chinese company to complete $ 1 billion Hydropower Project by 2026

Islamabad: Chinese state-owned China Gezhouba Group will complete the US $ 1 billion Azad Pattan Hydropower Project – with a capacity to annually generate 3064 Gigawatt hours (GWh) cheap and environment friendly power –by 2026.

The project’s US $1.5 billion investment agreement was signed between Chinese state-owned China Gezhouba Group and Pakistan in July 2020 at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Imran Khan and senior government ministers in July 2020, the Ministry of Water Resources said.

The 700 Megawatt (MW) project is located on Jhelum River roughly 7 km upstream of Azad Pattan Bridge in the Sudhanoti District, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and is 90 kilometers away from Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan.

The power plant of independent power producer, is one of the key energy projects on the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Meanwhile, the Pakistani official media reported that the 884 MW Suki Kinari Hydropower Project, being constructed with US $ 1.9 billion cost under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) would be operational by 2022.

According to the schedule, Suki Kinari hydropower plant is expected to be completed by the end of next year. The run-of-the-river project is being established alongside the Kunhar River in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

It is also one of Pakistan’s largest private sector power development projects and is being constructed as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’s `Early Harvest’ projects.

The project is being developed on the Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model which implies that the Chinese Company would operate it for 30 years after which the project would be transferred to the Khyber Pakhtunkhaw government.

Once completed, the project would add 884 megawatts to the national grid and all four units would become fully operational by 2022.