Project Brief

The Ranolia Hydropower Project is a run-of-the-river type hydropower project with installed capacity of 17 MW located on Ranolia Khwar, a tributary of Dubair Khwar, District Kohistan of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. The Hydropower plant has been constructed about 850 m upstream of Dubair Bazar which is 20 Kilometers North of Besham on main Karakorum Highway. Besham is about 272 Km from Islamabad via Abbottabad and about 270 Km from Peshawar via Swat.

Salient Features

 Challenges Faced During Year (2022-23)

After successful completion and commissioning, Ranolia HPP remained in operation till August 26, 2022 when the unprecedented flood devastated the entire valley along Ranolia Khwar and inflicted severe damages on various components of Ranolia HPP. The Plant is not available for operation since then.

The plant operations were, discontinued in the wake of damages due to unprecedented floods of August 2022. It is worth mentioning here that a reasonable infrastructure of Ranolia HPP like the headrace channel (about 2.65 km); siphon pipe about 700m out 852m; forebay structure and penstock (about

Flood of 1200 Cumecs against the design discharge of 418 Cumecs for Ranolia HPP, at head weir site washed away the weir structure completely which need to be reconstructed on the new design. Beside this flood flow of 4000 cumecs against the design discharge of 2595 cumecs was recorded during the flood of 2022 at the power house location downstream of the confluence of two hill streams. The flood flow got diverted towards powerhouse due to huge slippage of hill slopes on the left bank upstream of power house. This caused outflanking of the flood protection wall and flows entered to the powerhouse building directly hitting all its structures and machinery.

It was, however, observed during the visit that due to proper design of foundation and its extension to the scour level the power house building remained safe despite directly hitting by the flood water current. The restoration work could not be taken in hand as PC-I is not yet approved due to ban placed on all major works during the tenure of present care taker government. 

Current Status

·       PC-I for rehabilitation of Project has been prepared and forwarded to P&D department for approval, through ADB funding which is yet not approved.

·       Possible restoration like cleaning of power house, cleaning and drying of E&M equipment and construction of embankment for protection of powerhouse have been managed through O&M grants on emergency basis.

·       Subsequently PEDO policy board has approved the captive use of Ranolia HPP.

·       Hiring of contractor is under process for construction of additional flood protection wall in order to safeguard the project in future.