During the second week of May, a request came to the USAID-funded 105 megawatt (MW) Tarakhil Power Plant located on the outskirts of Kabul. One of the transmissions lines of the Northeast Power System (NEPS) about 200 km away was damaged. Could the power plant supply the electricity during the repairs?
Six months earlier, the request could not have been granted. However, in December 2009 the fully energized 105 MW plant came on-line, providing enough back-up power to keep the system operating. During the repair to the transmission line, the plant supplied a morning peak of 85 MW. The supplied power ensured that the lights stayed on for an estimated 500,000 residents during the energy-hungry daylight hours.
“The incredible thing,” said a top energy official with USAID’s Office of Infrastructure, Engineering and Energy, “is that the system was down and nobody even knew it. A year ago, Kabul would have been dark.” A further success is that communication was seamless between the plant and Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat, Afghanistan’s power utility. “This is really a routine activity at this point,” the plant manager said. “When a line goes down, other stations pick it up.”