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wiredInUSA - November 2013
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Bhutan is looking to import up to 200 million
units of power this winter, probably from
India.
With an estimated exploitable potential
of 23,760 MW in hand, Bhutan's present
installed production capacity is around
1,500MW. Despite its own generation
of around 6,500 million units against an
average annual domestic demand of only
1,500 million units, Bhutan needs to import
power.
As Mr C Rinzin, managing director of
Druk Green Power Corporation (DGCP)
explained, with most hydropower plants
of Bhutan being on ‘run of the river’
schemes, generation is entirely water flow
dependent. Water flow is at its lowest level
during the dry winter season.
This winter Bhutan’s wintertime import need
is expected to reach 200 million units, with
the upward trend likely to continue until
2016 when the 1,200MW Phunatshangchu
project begins operation.
Bhutan earns 45 percent of its total revenue
and 20 percent of GDP from hydropower
export.
Bhutan’s winter power
shortfall
Huawei has announced a fiber to the
distribution point (FTTdp) G.FAST technical
field trial in partnership with the UK’s BT.
G.FAST technology allows existing copper
connections to reach speeds comparable
toopticalconnections,withthepotential to
facilitate Gigabit per second broadband
speeds to domestic and commercial
customers without causing the major
upgrade disruption associated with Fiber-
to-the-Premises technology. Bymaximizing
the potential capacity of existing copper
wire infrastructure, successful deployment
of G.FAST technology could accelerate
the rollout of ultrafast broadband in the
UK.
The G.FAST trial, located close to the BT
Adastral Park R&D centre in Ipswich, UK,
has seen multi-port G.FAST equipment
installed in undergrounddistributionpoints.
G.FAST permits the last leg of an ultrafast
network connection to be carried out
with copper wire where previously only
optical cable was capable of reaching
adequate speeds.
BT trials
G.FAST