Karot Hydro

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Karot Power Company Ltd. (“KPCL” or “the Company”), a special-purpose vehicle incorporated in Pakistan and majority owned by China Three Gorges South Asia Investment Limited (CSAIL), is undertaking the construction, operation and maintenance of a 720MW hydropower plant being developed on the Jhelum River (the “project”). The project is expected to generate 3,174 GWh (net) annually and will sell all of its energy to the National Transmission and Dispatch Company Limited (NTDC) under a 30-year Power Purchase Agreement. Payment obligations of NTDC will be guaranteed by the Government of Pakistan (GoP). The project construction is expected to commence in December 2015, and is expected to take five years to complete. The construction will include a 95.5 meter high asphalt concrete core rockfill dam, a surface powerhouse, four headrace tunnels (7.9-9.6m in diameter x 316m long), a spillway, and a 5km 500kV transmission interconnection to the 500 kV Neelum Jhelum line (being developed by NTDC), which will connect to the national power grid. This new interconnection line will also be designed and constructed by NTDC. At present, the route and connection point to the national grid have not been determined. The project construction will include three diversion tunnels (12.5m diameter x 447 m long) and cofferdams upstream and downstream of the main dam as well as a central construction camp and satellite camps for staging activities and for accommodating workers. In addition, a total of 9.6km of public roads, two vehicle bridges and a footbridge over the Jhelum, and several bridges over small tributaries will be replaced and moved out of the footprints of the construction site and reservoir.The project will operate as a run-of-river project for approximately six months per year, in spring and summer, and as a daily peaking project for the remainder of the year. In summer, water not used for generation will be diverted through the spillway and discharged to the river downstream of the tailrace. The dam will create a reservoir that will reach 27km upstream in the steep Jhelum gorge. The reservoir will average no more than about 200m across in the narrow gorge and cover an area of about 696 hectares. The primary engineering, procurement and construction (“EPC”) contractor is Yangtze Three Gorges Technology and Economy Development Co. Ltd.  Arrangements for the operations and maintenance of the project have not yet been confirmed.The project sponsor, CSAIL, was established by China Three Gorges Corporation (CTGC), through its wholly-owned overseas intermediary, China Three Gorges Investments (CTGI), previously known as CWE Investment Corporation (CWEI). CSAIL serves as the dedicated platform company for CTGC renewable energy investments in Pakistan. IFC committed an equity investment of up to US$125 million in CSAIL (project #34062) in May 2014.CTGC was founded in 1993 to build the 22,500MW Three Gorges Project (the largest hydropower project in the world) on the Yangtze River in China. As of December 2014, CTGC had approximately 50,000MW of installed capacity in operation.