Ghazi Barotha
Ghazi Barotha
Ghazi Barotha Hydropower Project is located on the Indus river downstream of Tarbela Dam in Pakistan. The Project utilizes the hydraulic head available between the tailrace at Tarbela Dam and the confluence of the Indus and Haro Rivers for power generation. In this reach Indus River drops by 76m in a distance of 63km.This project holds the record for having the largest concrete lined channel in the world. The channel is 51.90km long with a concrete lining and design flow of up to 1,600 cumecs at a water depth of 9m. It has a bottom width of 58.4m.
The Power Complex having two head ponds with a combined live storage capacity of approximately 25.5 million cubic meter is sufficient for the daily requirement of 4 hours peak generation. This means that in May and June when there is reduced generation from Tarbela and Mangla power houses, due to low reservoir levels, Ghazi Barotha Hydropower Project provides peak production of 1,450MW.
The five generating units in the Powerhouse are each fed by a 10.6m diameter steel lined penstock. Each of the five 290MW Turbo Generators can take a peak flow of 460 cumecs.
The power transmission is through 500 KV double circuit lines to WAPDA’s national grid system.
Mechanical and Electrical Equipment
The principal items of power equipment are as follows:
- Five Francis turbines each with a 290MW generator which together have a combined power generating efficiency of 94%.
- Five three-phase banks of transformers, each single-phase unit being 107.5MVA.
- 500kV conventional outdoor switchgear configured in one-and-a-half breaker arrangement.
- 12 cranes with lifting capacities from 6 to 450 tons.
With a project which is spread over such large area, it was considered necessary both for safety and efficiency that it should be monitored and controlled centrally. This has been achieved by providing two independent distributed control systems (DCS) one each at the Barrage and Power Complex which share information through an optic fibre cable link.
Bruce was responsible for the design of the Lighting and Power services within the Power Complex and for the cable routing which dictated the locations of slots and channels to be formed in the floors and walls to allow the cable routing.
Works included;
- Lighting and Power Design, circuiting and cable calculations
- Cable schedules for Power and Instrument Cables
- Identifying and routing power, 220V dc, 230V UPS ac 230V, Safe ac, multi core SWA cables and multi screened twisted pair SWA cables.
Cable routing works included cable tray design and coordination with other trades.