Assam: Excavation for Head Race Tunnel of Lower Kopili Hydroelectric Project completed

Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma has congratulated the team of APGCL, L&T for their achievement

Power generation in Assam will get a major fillip with the Commissioning of the Lower Kopili Hydroelectric Power project in Dima Hasao. Expected to be completed by June 2024, the Assam Power Generation Corporation Limited (APGCL) and engineering giant Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has achieved a major breakthrough by completing excavation works for the Head Race Tunnel.

The Assam Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) in a post shared in ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter) lauded the achievement. The post read, “@himantabiswa extends his congratulations to the project teams of APGCL and L&T at the under-construction 120 MW Lower Kopili Hydroelectric project, Dima Hasao for successfully completing underground excavation of the 7-meter wide and 3.6-km long Head Race Tunnel in 18.5 months.”

What is a Head Race Tunnel?
The water conveyance system that connects the intake and the forebay of a run-of-river hydropower plant is referred to as a headrace. Canals, pipes, tunnels, or other conduits, such as box culverts, are used as headraces in hydropower plants.

On September 11, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had informed the Assembly that all the sources for generating electricity – be it rivers or gas have exhausted. While the situation seemed to be alarming, Chief Minister Sarma said that he had done advanced planning to cope up with the situation. It was then CM Sarma mentioned about receiving 120MW power from the Lower Kopili Hydroelectric project, in addition to other sources in 2024.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had laid the foundation of the project in the month of October, 2021. In December 2020, the Government of India signed a $231 million Asian Development Bank loan to boost electricity generation capacity in Assam through construction of the 120 megawatt (MW) hydroelectric power plant.

This run-of-the-river project over Kopili river will help increase electricity supplied from clean energy by 469 gigawatt hour (GWh) by 2025 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 360,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Out of the total project cost of Rs 2,200 crore, Rs 1700 crore has been provided by the Centre while the rest of the cost has been incurred by the Assam Government. The revenue from this project will be fully utilized for Dima Hasao’s development.

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