Successful Jamuna River Crossing Highlights the Value of Advanced Conductors, Careful Engineering and Experienced Field Support
Bangladesh is a country shaped by water. Hundreds of rivers cross its low-lying landscape, supporting agriculture, transportation, commerce and the lives of millions of people. But those same waterways create extraordinary challenges for infrastructure development. Seasonal monsoons, flooding, shifting river channels, erosion, high winds and difficult access can turn the construction of a transmission line into an engineering challenge far beyond what might be encountered on more conventional terrain.
Few places illustrate those challenges better than the Jamuna River.
The Jamuna, the principal downstream channel of the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh, is one of the world’s great braided river systems. Its channels, sandbars and banks continually change as enormous volumes of water and sediment move through the system. During the monsoon season, river levels and flows rise dramatically, while erosion and deposition can reshape portions of the river corridor. The World Bank has described the Jamuna as one of the largest and most dynamic rivers in the world – a vital resource for millions of people, but also a source of significant flooding, erosion and displacement.
Against this backdrop, Power Grid Bangladesh PLC, working with EPC contractor KEC International Ltd. and other project partners, recently completed one of the most technically demanding portions of the 230 kV double-circuit Ishwardi–Ghorashal Transmission Line: a major crossing of the Jamuna River using Drake size ACCC® ULS Conductor.
The river-crossing section between structures T185 and T196 included a crossing span exceeding 1,200 meters and towers approximately 111 meters high. Construction began on April 3, 2026, and the line was successfully energized on August 9, 2026.
For the project team, reaching that milestone represented far more than simply pulling conductor from one tower to another. It required months of engineering, planning, coordination and field execution in an environment where the river itself is constantly changing.
When Geography Becomes Part of the Engineering Equation
Large river crossings present transmission engineers with a unique combination of structural, mechanical, logistical and environmental considerations. Long spans increase conductor tension and place substantial loads on structures and hardware. Maintaining adequate clearance above the river requires careful consideration of conductor sag under operating and environmental conditions. Tall structures complicate installation and increase exposure to wind. Access for equipment and personnel can be difficult, while activities over navigable or moving water require additional safety precautions.
The Jamuna adds another dimension.
It is an intensely braided river, characterized by multiple channels, shifting sandbars known locally as “chars,” extensive floodplains and significant seasonal changes in flow. Scientific studies have documented substantial lateral migration and riverbank erosion along the Brahmaputra–Jamuna system. During the monsoon season, enormous quantities of water and sediment move downstream from a drainage basin extending deep into the Himalayas.
In such an environment, reducing dependence on intermediate structures can offer substantial advantages. Every structure that can be eliminated from a difficult river or floodplain environment represents one less foundation to construct, one less location to access and maintain, and one less asset potentially exposed to erosion, flooding and changing river morphology.
That is one of the reasons conductor selection becomes particularly important.
Why ACCC ULS Conductor Makes Sense for Extreme Spans
For the Jamuna River crossing, Power Grid Bangladesh PLC selected Drake size ACCC® ULS Conductor manufactured by Apar Industries Ltd., with associated hardware supplied by Dervaux.
ACCC ULS Conductor was developed specifically for applications where exceptional mechanical strength and low thermal sag are important. Its carbon-fiber composite core provides substantially greater strength at significantly lower weight than conventional steel reinforcement. Its very low coefficient of thermal expansion also enables the conductor to maintain excellent clearance characteristics as electrical loading and conductor temperature increase.
These attributes can be especially valuable for major river crossings.
The combination of high tensile strength, low core weight and low thermal expansion gives transmission engineers greater flexibility when addressing very long spans. At the same time, the ACCC Conductor’s trapezoidal aluminum strands provide greater aluminum content within a given conductor diameter (without a weight penalty) compared with many conventional round-wire designs. This helps increase electrical capacity while reducing resistance and associated line losses.
The result is not simply a “high-temperature conductor.” It is a conductor system that can address several engineering objectives simultaneously: mechanical strength, long-span capability, electrical capacity, efficiency, sag performance and corrosion resistance.
CTC Global’s experience with long-span applications now extends to major crossings around the world, including ACCC Installations with individual spans approaching 1,600 meters. These applications demonstrate an important point about advanced conductors: their value is not limited to reconductoring existing transmission corridors. Their combination of strength, light weight, capacity and efficiency can also provide significant advantages when engineers are designing new lines through difficult terrain or across major waterways.
Bangladesh Has Become an Important ACCC Conductor Market
The Jamuna crossing is also part of a much larger story.
Bangladesh has increasingly utilized ACCC® Conductor for transmission projects where capacity, efficiency, mechanical performance and long-term reliability are important considerations. Power Grid Bangladesh PLC has selected ACCC Conductor for dozens of transmission applications, including reconductoring projects and long-distance 400 and 500 kV lines. On several of those higher-voltage projects, quad-bundled ACCC Conductor configurations have been selected to combine very high power-transfer capability with strength, efficiency, reliability and corrosion resistance.
That growing experience is particularly relevant in Bangladesh.
The country’s rapidly developing economy requires a transmission system capable of moving increasing amounts of electricity efficiently and reliably. At the same time, Bangladesh’s dense population, extensive river systems, floodplains and challenging environmental conditions can make the development of new transmission infrastructure difficult and expensive.
Advanced conductors can help address several of these challenges simultaneously.
Greater capacity can allow more power to be moved through a given transmission corridor. Lower electrical resistance can reduce line losses, meaning that more of the electricity being generated reaches consumers instead of being lost as heat. High strength and low sag can help engineers address long spans and difficult terrain. The composite core’s resistance to corrosion is another valuable attribute in humid and demanding environments.
Perhaps most importantly, Bangladesh is no longer evaluating ACCC Conductor solely as a new technology. Power Grid Bangladesh PLC and the country’s transmission engineering community have accumulated meaningful project experience with the conductor, its associated hardware, installation practices and operating characteristics. Each successful project adds to that body of knowledge and provides engineers with greater confidence when evaluating ACCC Conductor for subsequent applications.
The Jamuna River crossing is an excellent example of that progression from technology adoption to accumulated experience.
The Installation Challenge
Selecting the right conductor is only part of successfully completing a project of this magnitude. Installation practices, equipment, hardware, trained personnel and field coordination are equally important.
The T185–T196 crossing required careful development of the pilot-rope and stringing arrangement because of the extraordinary span length, tower height, river conditions and limited accessibility. During conductor installation, pulling tension occasionally exceeded the initial sagging tension, requiring continuous monitoring and precise control to ensure that conductor tensions remained within specified parameters.
Working from towers approximately 111 meters high introduced additional complexity. Wind conditions, communications between crews, equipment coordination and safety procedures all had to be carefully managed.
The project also required execution of a mid-span splice within the river-crossing section – an operation where workmanship, preparation, cleanliness, dimensional control and adherence to established installation procedures are especially important.
These are precisely the circumstances where experienced field support matters.
ACCC Conductor is supported by a global network of trained installers, manufacturing partners, hardware suppliers and field service specialists. That support system has been developed over more than two decades and hundreds of kilometers of installation experience. For technically demanding projects, particularly major crossings such as the Jamuna, close cooperation between the utility, EPC contractor, conductor manufacturer, hardware supplier and field support team helps ensure that the conductor system performs as it was designed to perform.
On this project, Power Grid Bangladesh PLC, KEC International, Apar Industries, Dervaux, CTC Global and the installation teams worked together to successfully complete one of the most difficult sections of the Ishwardi–Ghorashal line.
Engineering Infrastructure for a Changing Environment
There is also a broader lesson in the Jamuna project.
Transmission systems are increasingly being asked to perform in environments that are themselves becoming more challenging. Flooding, erosion, extreme temperatures, storms, wildfires, changing generation patterns and rapidly growing electricity demand are forcing utilities around the world to reconsider assumptions that guided transmission design for much of the last century.
Bangladesh experiences many of these pressures with particular intensity. Its rivers are essential to the country’s economy and ecology, but they also create some of the most difficult conditions imaginable for infrastructure development. Building a resilient electric grid in such an environment requires more than simply reproducing yesterday’s transmission designs.
It requires using every available engineering tool.
High-strength, low-sag advanced conductors can help span difficult terrain. Higher-capacity conductors can move more electricity through constrained corridors. More efficient conductors can reduce electrical losses throughout decades of operation, conserving generation resources and reducing the environmental impacts associated with producing electricity that would otherwise be wasted. Corrosion-resistant materials can improve durability in challenging environments. Modern monitoring and verification technologies can further improve confidence in installation quality and long-term performance.
Individually, each of these attributes has value. Together, they can help utilities build transmission systems that are better suited to the physical, economic and environmental challenges they face.
More Than a River Crossing
The successful completion and energization of the Jamuna River crossing on August 9 represents an important milestone for the Ishwardi–Ghorashal Transmission Line, but its significance goes beyond a single section of line.
A span of more than 1,200 meters has been successfully completed across one of the world’s most dynamic rivers. ACCC Drake size ULS Conductor was installed between towers rising approximately 111 meters above the surrounding terrain. Complex pilot-rope operations, carefully controlled stringing and a critical mid-span splice were completed safely and successfully.
Behind those statistics are engineers, linemen, project managers, field service specialists, manufacturers and utility personnel working together to solve an exceptionally difficult infrastructure challenge.
CTC Global congratulates Power Grid Bangladesh PLC, KEC International Ltd., Apar Industries Ltd., Dervaux and all of the project and field personnel whose careful planning, technical expertise and commitment to safety helped make this important milestone possible.
Projects such as the Jamuna River crossing also demonstrate why Bangladesh continues to be an important adopter of ACCC Conductor technology. When transmission lines must carry more power, reduce losses, cross extraordinary spans and operate reliably in some of the world’s most demanding environments, conductor selection becomes much more than a material specification.
It becomes an integral part of the engineering solution.
