Efficient power cables help improve HESCO’s profits

With ADB-funded loan, company improves transmission network.

ISLAMABAD: Iqbal Majeed, office secretary of Hyderabad’s Memon Cooperative Housing Society, repeated the same phrase several times in just a few minutes of conversation:

“We are extremely comfortable now,” Majeed said.

He was referring to the resolution of the “electricity problem” the society faced, before the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) replaced their faulty electrical wires with an ‘aerial bundled cable’ in October 2011.

The network of electrical wires was previously so jumbled and damaged that the society’s transformer would break down almost every day. The transformer’s fuse would blow during rains, or even as birds perched on the wires, Majeed said. Sometimes the transformer itself, or the live wires, would fall to the ground, creating safety hazards for residents of the area. The time it took to register electrical complaints and get them fixed was nothing short of a recurring nuisance. But for a year now, the residents have had some relief.

The bundled cable carries electrical wires in a protective plastic sheath, so that live wires do not accidentally come into contact with neutral ones and cause a hazard.



“The number of complaints from the society is almost nonexistent now,” Majeed said.

Hesco replaced twelve sets of cables in the housing society through a pilot project costing Rs6.9 million. The project was funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), under its $810 million countrywide Power Distribution Enhancement Investment Programme.

Conventional electricity meters were also replaced with new, technologically-advanced meters. The project was monitored for three months up until January 2012, according to Habibullah Shaikh, general manager of development at Hesco.

During the three months of observation, the lack of electrical outages and transmission line losses helped increase Hesco’s revenue from the society by Rs2.53 million, Shaikh said.

Hesco and the Sukkur Electric Power Company installed 237 sets of aerial bundled cables and electricity meters in different areas of Thatta, Kotri, Khairpur, Sukkur and Shikarpur after the success of the pilot project. Another 57 will be installed soon.

The project’s total estimated cost of installation, including the pilot project, stands at Rs323.7 million, according to Hesco’s project monitoring report.

Sheikh said the two distribution companies expect to save Rs404 million per year because of the installations. The savings will come from increased revenues and yearly savings in maintenance costs.

The ADB loaned Hesco $26.2 million as the first installment for energy loss reduction and grid-related projects. Out of the total, $12.1 million was spent on installations of aerial bundled cables, while another $12.2 million was spent on augmentation and extension of grid stations.

Hesco is now spending a second instalment of $32.3 million from the ADB for a new grid station, conversion of three grid stations from 66 kiloVolts (kV) to 132 kV, and installing 272 kilometres of transmission lines and 150 kilometres of insulated 11kV conductors.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2012.