Chinese engineers appreciated for Lahore-Matiari HVDC project

Thank you Chinese brothers for supporting Paki-stan’s construction. Long live Pakistan-China friendship, said engineers from Pakistan’s National Power Construction Corporation.

According to China Economic Net they ex-pressed appreciation to engineers of XJ Group Cor-poration, China, responsible for supplying, install-ing and commencing core equipment for Matiari-Lahore ±660kV high-voltage direct current trans-mission project, under the framework of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

This set of core equipment includes converter valves, DC&AC control and protection, measuring system, and so on.

“These can be regarded as the ‘brain and heart’ of the Matiari-Lahore high-voltage direct current project,” said Hu Siquan, the general manager of XJGC Flexible Transmission Branch.

According to Liu Kun, a project manager of XJGC, the first team of XJ Group, over 10 engi-neers, reached the site of Matiari-Lahore HVDC project in January 2020, following the arrival of equipment.

With the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, Chi-nese engineers had to work while observing the rules and measures to fight against the pandemic.

To push ahead the high-voltage direct current project, ten engineers of XJ Group braved the coro-navirus risk to arrive in Pakistan in June 2020.

These engineers used to keep working nearly 13 hours a day in the intense heat in July.

They had finished the installation of 336 con-verter valve modules at both of Lahore converter station and Matiari converter station, installation and commissioning of 24 converter valve towers and valve control systems as well as the subsystem tests.

In October 2020, the transmission line had been set up and XJ Group’s DPS3000 Operator control system had finished commissioning.

They had overcome various difficulties during the three years of construction. Liu told CEN that, “Some of the 30 engineers had been working in Pakistan for over a year, with one staying there for 465 days”.

After three years’ hard working, the high-voltage direct current transmission project has started commercial operation in September 2021.

To better operate and maintain the high-voltage direct current project, engineers of XJ Group have carried out seven training programs both of offline and online for more than 80 engineers from Na-tional Power Construction Corporation and National Transmission & Despatch Company of Pakistan.

They appraised that besides the advanced equip-ment, XJ Group’s engineers are capable with high-level expertise. The sound performance of XJ Group has been affirmed by the Pakistani side.

The 878-kilometer-long Matiari-Lahore high-voltage direct current project with a capacity of 4,000 megawatt power transmission, starts from the Matiari Converter Station in Sindh in the south, and ends at the Lahore Converter Station in Punjab.

It is Pakistan’s first high-voltage direct current transmission project. The State Grid Corporation of China operates in the mode of construction, owner-ship, operation, and handover. The operation period is 25 years, and the total investment is $1.658 bil-lion.

The engineers of XJ Group, China, carry out training programs for engineers from Pakistan’s National Power Construction Corporation.