By Jeremy Sollars
QUEENSLAND’S energy minister Mark Bailey says upgrades to Warwick’s electricity network will ensure a reliable power supply for years to come on the Southern Downs.
A fortnight after the last major blackout to hit Warwick which left thousands of households without power for up to eight hours, Mr Bailey said a 10-year program to provide the Southern Downs community with “a modern, safe and reliable power supply” has now been completed.
Mr Bailey said the $33 million East Warwick substation project to replace the original substation meant the entire backbone of Ergon Energy’s network supplying the region had been upgraded in the past decade.
“The original East Warwick substation had served the community well since 1954, but a modern replacement was needed to meet the future requirements of residents and businesses,” Mr Bailey said.
“The substation, at the intersection of Percy and East streets, supplies power to about 5000 customers in the town and in rural areas to the east of Warwick.
“The project generated more than 40,000 hours of labour work for local tradies and contractors during the 2.5 year construction.”
“Ten years ago, the Warwick region was one of the worst-performing parts of Ergon’s network and customers experienced an unacceptable number of power supply interruptions during severe storm seasons.
“Earlier projects such as the refurbishment of one of the sub-transmission lines from Toowoomba to Warwick and rebuilding the second one as a new, high-reliability line, plus an upgrade to the West Warwick substation, turned that around.
Mr Bailey said the benefits of many of the projects extended to other parts of the Southern Downs supplied from the Warwick bulk supply substation.
“These customers have also benefited from the refurbishment of the Warwick to Stanthorpe 110kV line and the upgrading of the East Stanthorpe 33kV line, so the network has more flexibility and delivers improved reliability and quality of supply in the Stanthorpe region,” Mr Bailey said.
“New 25MVA transformers have the capacity to meet future demand on the network and also enable some load that had been temporarily transferred to West Warwick substation to be returned.
“The substation also has new capacitor banks and circuit-breakers and the start of the feeder lines out of the substation have been replaced.”
Mr Bailey said the aesthetics of the redesigned substation were much more appealing to neighbouring residents due to the indoor design and landscaped buffer zones.
“While the old substation was built outdoors, the revamped version features two modular buildings to house the new switchgear,” he said.
