Breakthrough has been achieved in the 1700 meters long tunnel from Audit-1 to the Headworks of the 73.5 MW Middle Mewa Hydropower Project under construction in Taplejung. Sunil Regmi, senior manager of the project, said that about 75 percent of the project has been completed. According to him, the work has been advanced to complete the construction of the project by next year.

Middle Developers Limited is constructing the hydropower project. Its power plant will also be underground. Mikwakhola Rural Municipality and Meringden Rural Municipality are among the affected areas of the hydropower project. The gross head of the project will be 471.47 meters and the design discharge will be 18.67 cubic meters per second.

The headrace tunnel for the project will be about 5,314 meters. Approximately 393 meters of penstock pipes will be placed horizontally and vertically. The estimated cost of the project is about Rs 14 billion, which will remain as a semi-reservoir project.

The electricity generated from the project is planned to be integrated into the national grid through the Dhunge Sanghu substation of Nepal Electricity Authority through a 10.7 km 132 kV double circuit transmission line. For that, about 36 towers will be constructed from the power plant to the national transmission line.

The height of the tower from the ground level will be minimum 30.26 meters and maximum 39.26 meters. The annual capacity of the project is 436.09 Gigawatt hours. The project’s peak energy is 75.02 GWh and non-peak energy is 61.59 GWh.

By Khagendra Adhikari