Mar 16, 2018-About 70 percent of the construction work on the Upper Trishuli 3A Hydropower Project has been completed, putting it on track to start generating electricity well ahead of its April 2019 deadline.
The 60 MW plant in the north of Kathmandu had been engulfed in uncertainty after the contractor, China Gezhouba Group Company (CGGC), halted all work citing heavy damage to the access road and dam during the 2015 earthquake, The Chinese company resumed work after the government had the access road repaired by the Nepal Army. Progress has been satisfactory since then.
A majority of the civil works have been completed, and hydro and electromechanical works are also being carried out at an accelerated pace, said state-owned power utility Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) which owns the project.
“We have completed around 85 percent of the civil works,” said Ambikesh Jha, the NEA appointed site in-charge of the project.
“The contractor has almost completed repairing two out of the four gates of the dam that were slightly damaged by the earthquake. By the end of March, the two gates will be repaired, and the rest will be repaired by April.”
The Chinese contractor has completed the excavation of a 4.1-km headrace tunnel. Similarly, the construction of a powerhouse is progressing on a war footing. The construction of the foundation where the power plant’s turbines will be installed is almost complete.
The power plant will have two turbines, each with a capacity of generating 30 MW of electricity. The project is planning to install the turbines before the monsoon. Meanwhile, a technical team of the Nepal Army is working to mitigate landslide risks on both sides of the dam as demanded by the contractor.
Landslides triggered by the tremor affected areas close to the dam site, posing a threat to the safety of workers. The army team has completed shotcreting the hillside on the right side of the dam. The process involves spraying concrete on the surface of hills to prevent landslides. To prevent landslides on the left side of the dam, the army is building fences with a special type of wire. The army has built a small cable car to transport construction materials, and is likely to complete the netting and fencing works on the hill in a couple of months. The NEA is building the 60 MW project located in Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts with a concessional loan of $114.7 million from the Export-Import (Exim) Bank of China.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
