A lignite coal power plant in Thar of Engro Powergen Thar Limited (EPTL) started pumping 330 MW of electricity. It is generated by domestic coal. Sources from the company stated that the first of two 330MW units of the 660MW project in Thar Block 2 was tested and boosted on Monday. The CEO of EPTL, Ahsan Zafar Syed mentioned that the company is running the plant on 100 percent local coal. They have planned to connect second 330MW to the national grid in April. Projects managed by Engro, including mining and power projects are expected to notch up to total $1.6 billion in foreign exchange savings a year. The power will be produced using home-produced coal. Construction on the country’s first 660MW power plant, an early harvest China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project, commenced in April 2016. It was to begin generating 660MW of power by December 2018. The EPTL power plant will utilize 3.8MTPA of coal supplied by Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) as both projects achieve their commercial operations date by June 2019. Post-COD, the plant is expected to transmit 660MW of electricity through a 282-km long 500 kV double circuit quad-bundle transmission line from EPTL plant to Matiari.