£1.5m investment in South Wales power network
Western Power Distribution (WPD) has invested more than £1.5 million in a major initiative to boost power supplies in Cwmbran, Wales.
30th January 2019 by Networks
WPD has installed over 16km of 11kV electricity cable and communication infrastructure across a large area of the town to bring power to a new critical care hospital as part of its network investment.
Work on the £350m 560 bed Grange University Hospital, which began in spring 2017, is due to be completed by autumn 2020.
WPD planner Rhys James said: “Our primary substation is located in the heart of Cwmbran, but this is some distance away from the hospital site.
“Installing the electricity cables to the hospital has involved extensive excavations through the main shopping area and residential housing estates, along narrow streets, beneath an old railway bridge and across playing fields.”
Specialist drilling equipment will be used to install a pipe large enough to carry three cable ducts containing the 11kV service cables. Two cables will feed the hospital with the third as a back-up. The hospital will also have its own back-up generators.
The cables will emerge in the hospital grounds and connect to a new substation built on the site. This will be energised at the end of March.
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