en.Wedoany.com Reported - On July 24, Harbin Electric Machinery Company Limited, a subsidiary of Harbin Electric Corporation, announced that the runner for Unit 1 of the Tarbela 5th Extension Project in Pakistan—a 504 MW hydropower turbine, the largest single-unit capacity ever exported by China—was successfully manufactured at the Harbin Electric Machinery Southern R&D and Manufacturing Center, Harbin Electric Machinery Zhenjiang Company, and has departed for Pakistan. This marks a major breakthrough in the development of core equipment for a landmark energy project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
The Tarbela Hydropower Station, often hailed as Pakistan's "Three Gorges Project," integrates power generation, flood control, and inter-basin irrigation functions. It is Pakistan's largest and most important power supply base, serving as a vital energy lifeline for the country.
As the "power heart" of a hydropower unit, the runner is the core component that determines the efficiency of hydraulic energy conversion.
The Tarbela Hydropower Station is located in the Indus River basin, which suffers from severe sediment accumulation, and the unit operates under complex conditions, posing stringent challenges to the development of the unit, especially the runner. To address this, Harbin Electric Machinery established a dedicated R&D team, systematically optimized the R&D and manufacturing system, and innovatively applied core technologies such as multi-layer composite machining and segmented stress relief treatment. These efforts resolved technical issues including high welding stress in large castings, stringent machining precision requirements, and susceptibility to deformation, successfully overcoming industry challenges in precision control and structural stability of large components.
The runner for the first unit of the Tarbela 5th Extension Project, independently developed by Harbin Electric Machinery, outperforms industry standards across all performance indicators. It features high stability and wide-load regulation capability, enabling stable operation under all working conditions from 0% to 100% load.
