Dana Khurkot transmission line repair
The repair of the 220 kV Dana Khurkot transmission line of the Kaligandaki Corridor has reached its final stage, raising hopes that 176 megawatts of stranded hydropower will soon flow into the national grid again, the Rashtriya Samachar Samiti reports from Myagdi. The line was damaged by the floods and landslides that struck in the second week of Ashoj, in late September, and by erosion of the Kaligandaki River, which damaged three of its towers and cut the corridor’s link to the central grid.
Because of the tower damage, seven hydropower projects in Myagdi and Mustang, with a combined capacity of 176 megawatts, could not feed their electricity into the national transmission system, and their generation remained shut for weeks. Their output is supplied to the central system through the Dana Khurkot line, so the fallen towers left the completed plants with no route to deliver their power.
To restore the supply quickly in the middle of the disaster, the Nepal Electricity Authority built a temporary tower using Canadian emergency restoration technology. A single temporary tower has been erected in place of the three damaged towers as an emergency measure, while the wider restoration process is taken forward alongside it, the authority said.
Sanjay Lohani, an assistant director of the Nepal Electricity Authority, said the construction of the temporary tower at Aulma, Doba, in Annapurna Rural Municipality ward 1 of Myagdi, across the Bhirkot section of the Beni Jomsom road, and the stringing of conductors over it, are both in the final stage. More than 20 engineers from the Kaligandaki basin hydropower projects and the transmission directorate, a similar number of technicians and more than 50 workers were deployed daily on the repair work, in difficult terrain above the Kaligandaki gorge.
The projects waiting to reconnect through the Dana Khurkot line are the 5 megawatt Ghalemdi Khola plant at Narchyang in Annapurna Rural Municipality, the 42 megawatt Mistri Khola, the 38 megawatt Nilgiri Khola 1, the 71 megawatt Nilgiri Khola 2 and the 6 megawatt Rele Khola in Myagdi, together with the 14 megawatt Thapa Khola plant at Tukuche in Mustang. Their capacities add up to the 176 megawatts that have been cut off from the central grid since the towers fell.
The Dana Khurkot line is part of the Kaligandaki Corridor transmission system, which carries power generated in the Kaligandaki basin of Myagdi and Mustang down to the national grid. Once the final stringing work is completed and the temporary tower is charged, the seven projects will resume supplying power through the line, ending a shutdown that has lasted since the late September floods.
The Dana Khurkot transmission line repair is expected to restore 176 MW of hydropower to the national grid once the temporary tower is charged.