BEIJING: China Machinery Engineering Corp (CMEC) will operate two units of thermal power plants of Punjab Thermal Power (Pvt) Ltd (PTPL) in the Jhang district of Punjab.

PTPL has signed an operations and maintenance agreement with CMEC in this regard, CEN reported.

“As we move closer to achieving simple-cycle Commercial Operations Date (COD), we have signed a simple-cycle O&M agreement with CMEC,” the Punjab government-owned company said.

CMEC is also the EPC contractor of the power plant, which has two RLNG-based units of 410MWs each, and a steam unit of 443 megawatts.

On the same day, CMEC put the second gas turbine (GT2) on a 7-day reliability test run, which will conclude on July 22.

GT1 has already passed the reliability-run test and is currently undergoing performance tests.

“The two units are expected to achieve COD on August 1,” a CMEC official said. “Both units will start contributing 820MWs of electricity to the national grid from next month.”

On the other hand, work on the steam unit is also almost complete, but will take around six months in achieving COD, as it involves complicated pre-commissioning procedures including chemical cleaning of the boiler.

According to PTPL, the power plant has already contributed over 100 million units of electricity during the commissioning and testing phase.