Columboola and Wandoan South substations
Client: Downer EDI/Powerlink
Location: Queensland, Australia
Date: January 2012 – March 2014
Designing and testing substations and switchyards to facilitate reliable, effective and safe electricity supply in an area of growing demand
Background
Columboola and Wandoan South substations are located near Miles in Central Queensland. They are part of Powerlink’s new network of substations supplying a number of new LNG plants being built in the area.
Entura was engaged to design and test a new 132 kV substation at Wandoan South, augment the existing Columboola 132 kV substation, and to design and test two new greenfield 275 kV switching substations at both plants.
Solution
During the design stage, Entura provided:
- civil design of roads and footings
- primary and structural design of primary equipment
- studies including noise, electromagnetic fields, insulation, earthing, lightening and short-circuit forces
- sediment and erosion control for inclusion in CEMPs
- secondary design, including common services, panel design and marshalling kiosks
- control design, including mux panels, RTU logic and configuration
- full telecoms design, including OPSWAN, landline and 3G modem links, IP addressing, fibre design and equipment terminations.
Outcome
The integrated nature of Entura’s designs meant that we were able to deliver comprehensive, workable primary, civil and structural designs in very short timeframes for all four substations.
Civil, structural and secondary designs were delivered ahead of schedule. Through our extensive experience with substation development and augmentation, we were able to identify successful staging solutions that overcame the challenges of delayed acquisition of the existing Columboola yard and one portion of land.
Entura’s integrated earthworks modelling ensured optimum results for the finished substation, the environment and the constructor, by balancing cut and fill quantities and minimising import and export of materials.
