13 October 2018

              In order to meet the electricity demand that would have been increasing yearly, MOEE is making efforts with the assistance of the Union Budget and international loans in implementing the processes such as building new power plants, extending transmission lines and sub-stations and promoting power plants that have declined in capacity.

              On 13 October, Union Minister for Ministry of Electricity and Energy U Win Khaing, accompanied by Deputy Minister Dr. Tun Naing and officials concerned inspected the condition of the overall renovation for Saetawgyi Power Plant which has two 12.5MW generators, located on Chaungmagyi Creek, 2 miles far from Saetaw Village, Salae Village trap, Madaya Township, Mandalay Region, with the aid of Japan ODA loan.

              First of all, U Khin Maung Win, Managing Director for Electric Power Generation Enterprise and the head of Power Plant presented reports on information of power plant, water inflow and storage condition of reservoir in accordance with the year, running status and the condition of the overall renovation used by ODA loan. Then the Union Minister gave comments and provided instructions for proper coordination for successful implementation of the works.

              Next, the Union Minister and party inspected the distribution condition of generated power via Aungpinlae Substation and Kyautpahtoe Substation by two 132 kV transmission lines and water inflow and storage condition of the main dam through the control room.

              The Saetawgyi Power Plant Project was started to construct in June, 1984 and ended in May, 1989. At present, its life is 28 years. Although the designed annual capacity is 134 GWhr, it generated 117.26 GWhr in 2015-2016 and 109.323 GWhr in 2016-2017. Therefore, the rate of power generation is declining more and more than its actual generation rate.

              Actually, the life of turbines, generators and mechanisms in Hydropower plants are generally regarded as 30 years and large-scale renovation work for them must be performed one time in 10 years. All the machines of this plant have not been overall renovated until now in spite of the terms of machines are nearly 30 years of age. So, if run the machines in Saetawgyi Power Plant without making renovation, the components of the machines in it will become huge bugs within 1 or 2 years. In addition, it will be difficult to procure components in order to exchange peripherals as well as to mend them.

              Because of these conditions, it will be going to shut down the plant for a long time, the croppers will be occurred in generation and then the crowd will encounter these effects. If those machines are renovated in time like this, it is going to apply safely and reliably until next 20 years. Moreover, it’ll fulfill the electricity demand to a certain amount.

              The machine No.(2) of Saetawgyi Power Plant, one of the overall renovation projects implemented by Japan’s ODA loans, is going to be renovated during rainy season in 2022 and No.(1) will be during rainy season in 2024 alternately. When other hydropower plants can collect water in their reservoirs and generate fully electricity, the overall renovations of the Saetawgyi Power Plant will be made. In doing so, there will be no electricity lack in National Grid.