CHAPTER 6 WORK BREAKDOWNhttp://www.waterpowermagazine.com/story.asp?

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Construction work is underway in Bhutan on the 124MW Dagachhu hydropower project, which will be equipped with electrical and hydro-mechanical equipment to be supplied by a joint venture of Alstom Hydro and Andritz Hydro. The underground plant is due to be completed and operational by early 2013. The high-head project is located in the south west of Bhutan, in Dagana province which is one of the remotest in the country, is heavily forested and has wet summers and cool, dry winters. While the region is remote and terrain difficult, it is only a straight distance of 40km from the capital, Thimphu. The project will use the waters of the Dagachhu River, which is a tributary of the Punatsangchhu, which drains into the Brahmaputra in eastern India. While being a run-of-river project, it will call for significant civil engineering infrastructure, much of it underground including the powerhouse, located almost 12km upstream of the confluence of the Dagachhu and Punatsangchhu rivers. The intake is nearly 9km farther up the Dagachhu valley. Gross head is 304m and the maximum design discharge is approximately 50m3/sec, and the plant is expected to generate about 515GWh of electricity per year. Hydrological risk combined with no water storage led the feasibility study and also due diligence by a major lending bank the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to apply a plant load factor of 52% to the project, which is relatively low. The project is developed by Dagachhu Hydro Power Corp (DHPC), a special company founded by Druk Green Power Corp (DGPC) the national owner and operator of all large hydro power plants in Bhutan. DGPC holds about 59% stake with the other equity partners Tata Power of India (26%) and Bhutans National Pension Provident Fund (15%). Tata also arranged the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for the import of electricity to India.

Lot 1 civil engineering works are being undertaken by Hindustan Construction Co (HCC). The project will require construction of new and upgrade access roads as well as a 19.5km long, 220kV transmission connection to the existing grid. Funding for the scheme, budgeted at Euro151M (US$198M), was provided by Bhutan, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and also Austria, via the Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (OeKB). Early studies on Dagachhu benefited from significant support from Austria, and involved Bernard Ingenieure ZT GmbH from 2005, and support from Poyry Energy. There was also support from the Austrian Development Cooperation (OeZA) agency. Previous collaboration with Austria led to development of the Basochhu Upper and Lower projects. Over 2005-6 the project design document for Dagachhu, under the UNFCCC assessment needed for CDM registration and carbon credits, was completed. The feasibility study was also undertaken in parallel in the latter part of that period. As the analyses were further reviewed and developed, however, the relative importance of the revenue share from carbon credits increased due to there having been, it was viewed, over-optimistic views of electricity prices and a better accounting for Bhutan getting a share of output for free. The validation report by Det Norske Veritas Certification AS (DNV), undertaken at the request of Poyry Energy, concluded that Dagachhu meets all relevant UNFCCC requirements for CDM and relevant cost party criteria, and correctly applies the required baseline and monitoring methodology. Total emission reductions resulting from the electricity generation of the hydropower project are approximately 0.5M tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year over the selected 7-year renewable crediting period. HCC is undertaking the Lot 1 package of the project, which includes: a diversion weir; intake; connection channel; desilter; flushing channel; a headrace channel and a 7.7km long headrace tunnel; surge shaft; pressure shaft; powerhouse and transformer caverns; control building; and, tailrace tunnel. The contractors design consultant is SNC-Lavalin.