Cracks develop in turbine's blades: Defence power plant again goes offline

Defence Cogen Power/Desalination Plant, the city's only steam-based power plant with a capacity of 84 megawatts power generation, become dysfunctional after cracks developed in its turbine's blades. This, not only resulted in losses of millions of dollars to the Defence Cogen Limited (DCL), but also deprived Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) of electricity it was receiving from the plant.
The DCL has recently repaired the Plant at a cost at least 10.5 million dollar, after it remained offline for at least 11 months. In the mean time, sources said, DCL has approached Siemens, a German-based firm and the manufacturer of the power plant, for repairing the damaged blades, as the blades apart from the shaft of the turbine were replaced by the firm previously.
They said that the DCL would have to pay huge amount for the replacement of blades that could take couple of months. The sources claimed that the process of replacement of the blades or repairing might be delayed due to the financial crunch being faced by DCL, as its plant remained offline for long time.
Due to financial constrains, the firm could only got replaced the central hollow shaft of the gas turbine recently. The DCL, which generates power as well as treat water through desalination process that is being supplied to Defence Housing Authority (DHA) area, was supplying over 80 megawatts to KESC for the last couple of months.
Due to the sudden disruption of over 80 MWs of power supply to KESC system following the closure of the plant, Karachiites stared braving long spells of load shedding. The power shortage being faced by the utility, which was about 350 MWs against the demand of the city, has increased to over 400 MWs with the closure of the plant.
DHA Power /Desalination Plant, which was inaugurated on February 11, 2008, had developed cracks in the central hollow shaft of the gas turbine, which led to excessive vibrations and resulted in collateral damage to the plant. The damaged parts of the plant were replaced at the cost of 10 million dollar recently, but again cracks developed in the blades of its turbine that led to it closure once again.
The plant was established by the DHA Cogen Ltd (DCL), a company set up under a joint venture agreement between the DHA and M/s Sacoden (Pvt) Ltd from Singapore and its associates, with a capacity to produce 84 megawatt (MW) net electricity and 3 million gallons per day (MGD) clean potable water to meet the needs of the DHA residents.