Dhalkebar substation to be completed in six weeks

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    Apr 11, 2018-Telmos Electronic, the Indian contractor working on the Dhalkebar substation, is on track to complete the construction within one and a half months, the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) said.

    A Chinese company was originally working on the 220 kV substation, but it was fired for delays after finishing most of the work. Around 5 percent of the construction work remained to be done when it was dismissed.

    According to the state-owned power utility, Telmos Electronic has seamlessly picked up where the Chinese contractor left off. The Indian company has completed pulling overhead cable lines and is about to finish laying cables on the trenches, said Radhe Sharan Mahato, the NEA appointed chief of the Dhalkebar Substation Project.

    Similarly, the company is installing various equipment in the substation at a faster pace. “Looking at the pace at which the contractor is carrying out the construction, it will complete the job within 45 days,” said Mahato.

    As per the Rs128 million contract signed with the NEA, Telmos Electronic is required to complete the substation within four months from the date of the agreement. The deal was signed in the first week of February, which means the Indian contractor needs to complete the job by the first week of June. However, it is likely the company will complete the construction well before the deadline.

    Central Power Grid International Economic and Trade Corporation, the Chinese contractor originally hired to implement the project, had completed 95 percent of the work on the substation when it was sent off by the NEA in September 2017 after being fed up with its deliberate delays.

    As per the deal signed between the NEA and the Chinese company in June 2014, the substation should have been up and running by September 2015. However, deliberate delays by the contractor led to the deadline being extended for the third time to May 31, 2017, but that deadline too passed after it halted construction without notification.

    Subsequently, the power utility published a global tender to select a contractor to complete the remaining work on the substation project and Telmos Electronic was selected to do it.

    The substation at Dhalkebar is of strategic importance for the country as it allows the NEA to import more power from India through the Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur cross-border transmission during the dry season when electricity production by domestic hydropower projects drops.

    Currently, the power utility can import up 160 MW of electricity over the cross-border power line. Once the substation at Dhalkebar is completed, the NEA will be able to import an additional 100 MW from India.

    The substation will also be crucial to evacuate the power generated by the 456 MW Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project which is on the verge of completion. The surplus power produced during the wet season can also be exported to India through the power line.

    Source: The Kathmandu Post