ISLAMABAD – The first unit (Unit 4) of the Pakistan Suki Kinari Hydropower Station, the largest hydropower station invested in and constructed by China Energy Construction Overseas Investment Co Ltd, has successfully started up and formally entered the wet testing phase.
Personnel from China Energy Construction Overseas Investment Co Ltd, SK Hydro Co Ltd, and participating construction units jointly witnessed this milestone on site. Representatives from the resident military and the owner’s engineering team also attended the startup ceremony. Unit 4 of SK Hydropower Station successfully passed a series of tests after starting up, is in a smoothly running state, and meets the design requirements. Subsequently, Unit 4 will conduct dozens of tests, such as a temperature stability test and an overspeed test, to ensure that all technical indicators of the unit meet the design standards, which will lay a solid foundation for the unit to enter the trial operation stage.
Before the start-up of unit wet testing, the SK Hydro Co., Ltd., together with all participating construction units, meticulously prepared the water filling and discharging test protocol, monitored the progress in real time, and efficiently solved problems to ensure the water filling and discharging effect, thus creating an important guarantee for the success of unit wet testing.
Cheng Dan, the General Manager of China Energy Construction Overseas Investment Co., Ltd., stated, “At the start-up ceremony, SK Hydropower Station was the largest hydropower station invested and constructed by CEEC overseas.” The start-up of wet testing for the first unit marks that the project construction has reached the final sprint stage, which is one step closer to achieving the goal of operation and power generation. The SK hydropower station is located on the Kunha River in the Mansehra area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province in the northwestern part of Pakistan. It is a key project in the first batch of priority projects of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and is equipped with four impulse units with a total installed capacity of 884 MW. Upon completion, the project can provide 3.212 billion kilowatt hours of clean electricity annually, effectively closing one-fifth of Pakistan’s electricity gap.
