Major projects

Planning for the future – Power and Water’s five year, $1 billion+ investment

With the Territory booming ahead, Power and Water needs to be able to provide a growing residential, business and industrial community with reliable power, water and sewerage services.

We live and work in a tough environment with severe extremes in weather. It is an ongoing challenge to get services ‘on the ground’ where they are required and to meet current and future demand. Day to day power demand is expected to grow by 7.1% within 12 months (peak demand by 2.5%) and water by 1.5%.

The five year, $1 billion investment in building, upgrading and maintaining facilities is the largest investment in essential services in the Territory’s history. Power and Water has allocated $825 million for capital and $258 million for repairs and maintenance initiatives under this program across power generation, power networks, water, sewerage and business services.

Major projects include:

• Weddell Power Station
• Manton Dam Pumpstation and transmission main
• Additional generation capacity in Darwin
• Owen Springs Power Station
• Lee Point Zone Substation and adjoining 66kV transmission line
• Manton Dam upgrade for service
• Darwin undergrounding of powerlines
• Ben Hammond Complex Redevelopment - Stages 3, 4 and 5
• Norris Bell Zone Substation and Alice Springs transmission line at Owen Springs
• Alice Springs CBD Zone Substation
• East Point rising main and extend outfall
• Sewer Relining Program

Current Power and Water major projects:

• Transmission Water Main to Palmerston - Power and Water is installing a new 4.2 kilometre transmission water main as part of its 2008 Capital Works Program. The main will extend from Howard Springs Road to Temple Terrace, then along Temple Terrace from the Stuart Highway to Roystonia Avenue.
• Manton Dam Water Quality Sampling Project is continuing in 2009. The project involves the release of water from the dam to the Manton River, and a program of water quality and environmental monitoring. The project will assist Power and Water in its understanding of the behaviour of the reservoir and the variability of water quality. This will assist Power and Water to consider how and when Manton Dam may be returned to service as part of the Darwin Region Water Supply Source Strategy as well as its use as an emergency supply.
• Larrakeyah Outfall Closure Plan - Power and Water is undertaking a program of works to allow the closure of the Larrakeyah sewerage outfall by 2011, in accordance with its wastewater discharge licence. It is part of the Darwin Sewerage Strategy.
• Raising the Full Supply Level of Darwin River Dam - Raising the full supply level of Darwin River Dam is required to provide additional water to meet increased demand in the Darwin, Palmerston and rural areas.
• Undergrounding power in Darwin - Power Networks continues to work on the Darwin under-grounding project to underground residential power supplies to almost 9,000 lots (or 16,000 customers) across 15 suburbs over a 20-year period.
• Future gas supply for power generation - A Gas Sale Agreement between the Power and Water Corporation and Eni Australia was finalised in late June 2006. This agreement means the Northern Territory’s electricity needs will be met for the next 25 years, with the gas used to run power stations in all major centres. Eni will extract the gas from the Blacktip Gas Field, which is located around 100km west of Wadeye in the Timor Sea.
• Archer Zone Substation - The substation will provide for alternative power supply (and capacity) to Palmerston at 11kV. This is required to provide for increased system security and redundancy, and to service increased load growth in the area resulting from developments such as Robertson Barracks, expansion of the Palmerston Shopping Centre, numerous new developments in the Palmerston CBD and extensive residential subdivisions. The substation will initially be comprised of 1 x 27 MVA transformer and be designed for an ultimate configuration of 3 x 27 MVA transformers.
• Replacing the SCADA system at Hudson Creek System Control Centre - The SCADA system at the Hudson Creek System Control in Darwin will be replaced with an upgraded version. The existing building will also be extended to house the new control and data acquisition system.
• Owen Springs Power Station will help to eliminate noise issues from the Ron Goodin Power Station - The new Owen Springs Power Station at the Brewer Estate will be the future home of the Titan and Taurus gas turbines which will be moved from the Ron Goodin Power Station in Alice Springs. 
• Noise mitigation works at the Alice Springs Ron Goodin Power Station - Following the installation of a new gas Titan generator at the Ron Goodin Power Station in Alice Springs in 2005 to meet rising electricity demands, some residents in nearby suburbs complained of increased noise from the power station. Power and Water has since worked with international sound monitoring experts, Hayes MacKenzie and the Titan's manufacturers to determine an engineering solution to mitigate these noise emissions.
• Solar Dishes at Hermannsburg, Lajamanu and Yuendumu
• Weddell Power Station is due for completion in 2008, and will be a base or intermediate load station with high efficiency open cycle gas turbines. It will be remotely controlled from Channel Island.
• Water Reuse in the Alice Project - The Alice Springs Water Reclamation Plant was officially opened in May 2008 and initially the project will recycle up to 600 mega litres of water a year.
• Upgrade of West Bennett Switching Station - To replace the ageing 11kV switchboard in the switching station. As works can only be carried out in the dry season the project is anticipated for completion in June 2009 .
• Upgrade of West Bennett 11kV express feeder to Frances Bay - Upgrade of the express feeder from Francis Bay will improve the firm capacities of the switching stations in CBD. 
• Completion of Frances Bay Zone Substation - Frances Bay is expected to be fully commissioned in October 2008 with final works and new 11kV express cables feeding each of the CBD switching stations.
• Marrakai Zone Substation - The project involves the construction of a 66/22 kV zone substation on the Arnhem Highway near the junction with Marrakai Road, with two 5 MVA transformer (ex Weddell), and turning the 66 kV transmission line which runs along the highway between Humpty Doo and Mary River substations into the new substation.This project will service expected load growth in the area and improve system security and redundancy.