A coal-fired power plant of the Thar Coal Block-I Coal Electricity Integration project under the framework of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was officially put into commercial operation on Sunday.

The plant, with a total installed capacity of 1,320 megawatts, is expected to provide about 9 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity per year to the Pakistani national grid, meeting the energy demand of nearly 4 million local families in Pakistan, head of the project Meng Donghai told Xinhua.(Thar Coal Block-I Power Generation Company (Pvt) Limited/Handout via Xinhua)

ISLAMABAD, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- A coal-fired power plant of the Thar Coal Block-I Coal Electricity Integration project under the framework of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was officially put into commercial operation on Sunday.

The plant, with a total installed capacity of 1,320 megawatts, is expected to provide about 9 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity per year to the Pakistani national grid, meeting the energy demand of nearly 4 million local families in Pakistan, head of the project Meng Donghai told Xinhua.

It will contribute to bringing down energy costs, improving energy structure, alleviating the crisis in energy imports, and strengthening Pakistan's energy security, Meng said.

Based in the Thar Desert of Sindh province in southern Pakistan, the Thar Coal Block-I Coal Electricity Integration project began construction in 2019. It included an open-pit coal mine with an annual output of 7.8 million tons of lignite and a coal-fired power station with two separate 660-megawatt high-parameter supercritical thermal power generating units.

It is the first large-scale overseas thermal power generation project independently developed, constructed and operated by the Shanghai Electric Group.

Launched in 2013, CPEC is a corridor linking the Gwadar port in southwestern Pakistan with Kashgar in northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which highlights energy, transport and industrial cooperation between the two countries.

This aerial photo taken on Feb. 4, 2023 shows the coal-fired power plant of the Thar Coal Block-I Coal Electricity Integration project in Sindh province, Pakistan. A coal-fired power plant of the Thar Coal Block-I Coal Electricity Integration project under the framework of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was officially put into commercial operation on Sunday.

The plant, with a total installed capacity of 1,320 megawatts, is expected to provide about 9 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity per year to the Pakistani national grid, meeting the energy demand of nearly 4 million local families in Pakistan, head of the project Meng Donghai told Xinhua.