Work Starts on $913 Million Electrical Infrastructure Project in Sydney Central Business District

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Following a recent series of major power outages in the Sydney, New South Wales (NSW) central business district (CBD) and surrounding suburbs, work has begun on the NSW state government-funded $913 million electrical infrastructure project, designed to make the power supply in Sydney on par with the best in the world.

In September 2008, a problem with two major power lines supplying the CBD caused a blackout that affected more than 5,000 homes and cut power to the Royal North Shore Hospital for more than three hours. On March 30 this year, almost 70,000 homes and businesses in the northern area of the CBD and nearby suburbs went without electricity after four major high-voltage supply cables faced a problem and automatically shut down.

The blackout, which happened at 4:45 p.m. local time, caused major traffic chaos, with the Sydney Harbor Tunnel and other main traffic arteries forced to close during peak hours. Local fire services were inundated with calls from people trapped in office building lifts and automatic fire alarms that were triggered.

Just a few days later, on April 4, another blackout caused major disruptions in the eastern and northern parts of the city, while on April 12, yet another distribution cable caused a blackout that affected about 3,000 homes and businesses in Inner Sydney. Ironically, the last three blackouts happened just a few days after Sydney voluntarily switched off lights to express support for Earth Hour 2009.

The infrastructure upgrade plan, known as the Sydney CityGrid project, aims at placing strategic distribution cables in dedicated tunnels, where they will be protected from accidental damage from excavations and building work. Specifically, up to four new zone substations will be constructed in the CBD; a 3.2-kilometer cable tunnel will be constructed to serve a new sub-station in the northern region; and other major cables and tunnels will be replaced or upgraded.

The new tunnels will connect with existing cable tunnels to form a ring of electrical infrastructure circling Sydney. The City West cable tunnel, costing $55 million, is being constructed by Thiess Pty Limited (Brisbane, Australia), a member of Leighton Holdings Limited (ASX:LEI) (Sydney, Australia). The tunnel is designed to accommodate about 20 kilometers of 132-kilovolt (kV) cables to serve the new City North substation, and is scheduled for completion by the end of the year.

This new substation, costing $76 million, will contain five transformers and 105 circuit breakers in an eight-storey building, connected to customers by 96 separate 11-kV cables. The City North substation alone will be capable of supplying up to 25% of the total CBD's power requirement and is also scheduled for completion by the end of 2009.

Planning permission for the CityGrid project already has been granted and work already has begun on the new substations. The NSW state government-owned electricity utility company EnergyAustralia (Sydney) is responsible for the upgrade and also has begun rolling out new fiber optic cables, which are designed to allow damaged cables to be switched out of operation without adversely affecting the overall distribution network.

Although work has begun on stages of the CityGrid project, the overall project is not scheduled to be completed until 2017. In addition to the City North substation and the City West cable tunnel, work has commenced on the new Belmore Park zone substation. This stage will include commercial development and is estimated to cost about $166 million alone. Work on this substation is scheduled for completion in 2012.

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