Consortium required to deliver system to support energy goals

ISLAMABAD: The National Transmission & Despatch Company Limited (NTDC) has awarded a consortium, which includes China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) and Hitachi ABB Power Grids1, a project to deliver an all-new Load Dispatch System (LDS) to support the country's sustainable energy goals.

The LDS system will help improve grid visibility and automation, enabling the seamless integration of renewables.

Pakistan is aiming to increase the contribution of renewable energy from the current four percent to thirty percent by 2030.

The intermittent nature of solar and wind energy production means that an increasing share of renewables requires greater observability, real-time monitoring, remote control and optimization of the power grid. The deployment of Hitachi ABB Power Grids' industry-leading supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) application, Network Manager, with its energy management and generation management capabilities, will facilitate efficient, secure and reliable grid operations.

To achieve this, the project team will deploy a SCADA Energy Management System (EMS) at NTDC's national control centre in Islamabad and at the back-up control centre in Jamshoro. The system will connect the control centres with all the power plants and grid stations that are not currently monitored in real-time and will help build capacity for future stations and remote ends.

The project will also involve the installation of a new mission-critical communication network with a fibre-optic foundation and featuring a microwave network as back-up. This will help achieve, among other things, secured data transmission and increased protection from cyber threats through tele-protection and near real-time encryption of operational data and signals.

Delay in approval of revised tariff: Tabish-led PD team meets Nepra bigwigs

After the unbundling of WAPDA, NTDC was incorporated as a public limited company in November 1998. NTDC is backbone of the national power system in Pakistan and is the country's largest transmission company. The company owns 220kV and 500kV grid stations and transmission lines and is preparing to welcome ultra-high voltage (765kV) and high voltage direct current (HVDC) technology.

"This hallmark project for NTDC, financed by ADB, will open new horizons through automation and sustainable international best practices to achieve a safe and reliable grid," said Engr. Azaz Ahmad, Managing Director NTDC.

He maintained that the project will bring more visibility and control to NTDC's operations, enhancing system's stability and curtailing system collapse and blackouts incidents in future.

"It's incredibly exciting to support Pakistan's giant leap toward a sustainable, carbon-neutral future," said Najeeb Ahmed, Country Managing Director Hitachi ABB Power Grids in Pakistan.

"The national LDS project is the culmination of several years of engagement with NTDC to understand its current and future needs and to deliver a project that is complex- geographically and technically," he added.

"The current SCADA system does not cater to the ever-expanding network, and an upgrade is essential to efficiently manage the new generation capacity," said He Wei, Deputy General Manager of Complete No.1 Plants Division of CMEC.

"With the implementation of the SCADA Phase 3 system enhancement program, 4085KM of Optical Ground Wire (OPGW) will be installed as the main communication channel alongside a microwave network serving the purpose of backup communication system to ensure control and command."

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021