Aug 17, 2017-
The Chameliya Hydropower Project plans to conduct a wet test of the plant and machinery by the third week of September as most of the civil works have been completed. The 30 MW scheme is located in Darchula district in western Nepal.
Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company, the electro-mechanical and hydro-mechanical contractor for the hydropower project, will start filling the project’s 4-km tunnel with water before the Dashain vacation begins.
A wet test of the plant’s various electro-mechanical equipment will begin immediately after the festival, according to the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), the owner of the project.
“It will take almost 12 days to fill the tunnel with water,” said Ajay Kumar Dahal, NEA appointed project chief of Chameliya. “Therefore, by the time the vacation is over, the Korean contractor can begin the wet test.” China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC), the civil contractor for the project, has agreed to make the project ready for the wet test and hand it over to the Korean contractor by September.
Most of the civil works of the hydropower project have been completed. Currently, the civil contractor has almost completed plugging two out of the three audit tunnels that were dug while digging the 4-km main tunnel. “The two audit tunnels will be plugged in a week, and CGGC will build a gate at the third,” said Dahal.
The Chinese company has also completed the construction of a 47-metre rock trap in the tunnel. A rock trap is a pit built in the tunnel to catch sediment, pebbles and stones in the water so that they do not enter the turbines and damage them.
The civil contractor has also conducted a successful test of the dam and desanding basin by channeling water from the Chameliya River into them.
CGGC resumed work on the project in October 2016 after leaving it for more than two years. It has speeded up construction work and has pledged to complete it well before the September-end deadline.
Construction at the site had come to a halt in May 2014 after the government refused to make an additional payment of Rs1.09 billion which the contractor had demanded for cost variance resulting from the squeezing of the tunnel. The contractor agreed to resume work after being summoned to the Energy Ministry and told to do so immediately by the then energy minister Janardan Sharma.
The NEA, the state-owned power utility, has also agreed to release a provisional payment of the disputed bill before the issue is resolved in order to maintain a regular cash flow for the project. After the dispute is settled, the contractor has to return the excess if it has been paid too much, and it will receive additional payment in case of a deficit.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
