Karot Hydropower Station, the first hydropower project along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, On Saturday closed the gates of its diversion tunnels and officially started to store water.
The Karot Hydropower Station in Pakistan is the first investment project of the Silk Road Fund and is part of CPEC. Its construction started six years ago. The plant starting to store water is a milestone event marking the completion of about 95% of the project.
Location of Dam:
The Karot Hydropower Station is a run-of-river concrete-core rock fill gravity dam that is being built on Jhelum River at the junction of Punjab and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Capacity of Dam:
- The dam has a reservoir storage capacity of 164.5 million cubic metres
- The dam has a power generation capacity of 720 MW.
- It is expected to be 95.5 meters high and 460 meters across the Jhelum River.
- The dam is anticipated to have an average annual electricity output of 3436 GWh
- It will provide power for approximately seven million households.
Operator and financing:
- The hydropower plant will be operated by Karot Power Company.
- The Three Gorges South Asia Investment (CSAIL) is the major investor of the dam. CSAIL is a unit of the state-owned China Three Gorges Corporation (CTGC)
- The Associated Technologies of Pakistan also holds shares in the dam.
- The Export-Import Bank of China and China Development Bank are also among financing the dam.
The project will provide cheap electricity to consumers
The project not only offered employment opportunities to the locals but will also bring down electricity costs for consumers.
“During construction, about 3,000 to 5,000 people will be employed, and they’re already employed here. Another important thing is that the tariff for the project is around 7.5 U.S. cents per unit. So consumers in Pakistan will get cheaper electricity from this basic project,” N.A. Zubeiri, CSAIL senior consultant explained.
Once the construction is complete, the Karot Power Company will run and maintain the project for 30 years at a levelised tariff of 7.57 cents per unit. After 30 years, the ownership will be turned over to the Pakistan government. It will be transferred to the Punjab government at a notional price of Rs. 1 per unit.
About CPEC
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a 3,000-kilometer-long route of infrastructure projects connecting northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the Gwadar Port in the western province of Balochistan in Pakistan.