Council to operate standby generators and pumping plant

The Christchurch City Council is taking steps to help secure continued power supply into the city over the next three weekends during a required equipment upgrade, which will take a transmission line out of service.

During the weekends of 10-11, 17-18, and 24-25 January 2004 the national grid operator Transpower will be replacing ageing protection equipment at the Islington sub-station. This will require one of the 220,000-volt transmission lines running from Tekapo to Islington to be taken out of service.

Transpower spokesperson Chris Roberts says the work is being carried out over three weekends to avoid taking the transmission line out of service during the week, when demand is higher. Transpower has wanted to replace the old protection equipment for some time to ensure ongoing security of supply into Christchurch, he says.

The City Council has agreed to run all available standby generators and diesel-powered pumps during these weekends to reduce the load on the grid and improve the security of the supply while the work is carried out.

The hours of operation will be restricted to 7am to 9pm on the Saturdays and 7am to 6pm on the Sundays of the three weekends affected.

Council Pumping and Control Manager, Trevor Shadbolt, says that some neighbours of these pump stations will notice the engines operating. Supply of water and wastewater services will not be affected and the operation of these standby generators would not be at any cost to the Council.

Many of these stations operate diesel plant at peak load times in the winter, so this is a similar situation, Mr Shadbolt says.

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