Utility aims to prevent blackouts

Hydro customers on Canada's weather-challenged East Coast will be better protected from a major loss of service, following the completion of an advanced telecommunications network that monitors power delivery across the region.

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro's (www.nlh.nf.ca) newly completed East Coast Microwave Radio Project provides a high-speed data and voice link that carries an upgraded digital leleprotection signal.

The infrastructure enables the utility to swiftly identify power disruptions and make an emergency switch to a back-up hydro grid without serious service loss. The aim is to protect customers from the rare but devastating weather-related power outages of previous years.

"Severe ice storms in the early 1970s and in 1985 left some customers without power for weeks at a time. Our new system addresses the service challenges of the region's persistent ice storms and winds of up to 250 km per hour," said Glenn Hicks, project manager at Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, which generates more than 80 per cent of all energy consumed in the region.

The utility's new $10 million network, which links the company's Energy Control Centre with transmission lines, terminal stations and generating stations across Newfoundland's Avalon peninsula, supersedes an obsolete system in place since the 1960s. The upgrade involved swapping analogue for digital technology and separating the utility's power lines from its telecommunications system to improve reliability.

Despite the anticipated benefits, the upgrade was far from being a simple switch-over to a new procedure. The company needed an established solution provider that could meet the challenges of a project that was expected to take at least two years.

"We needed a solution that addressed our telecommunication needs well into the next decade. After a cost-benefit analysis of several different technologies and providers, we chose Alcatel (www.alcalel.ca), a company we had worked with in the past," said Don Barreit, the utility's manager of corporate affairs.

Alcatel offered the company a complete turnkey solution for its teleproteclion upgrade project. The global corporation, known for designing and developing communications networks around the world, offered to manage the entire venture, including some challenging construction work.

"In the past, the customer did the project management and most of the construction. This is the first time we have committed to providing end-to-end connectivity for a client," said Chris McGaffey, vice-president of Alcatel's network services division. "This was a large construction project wrapped around a modest microwave project."

The project involved the construction of lowers and generators at 13 sites in the region, some of which were remote and difficult to access.

"Along with the weather [snow disrupted the schedule in fall and winter], the remoteness of the locations required very competent project management. Many of the locations were only accessible by secondary roads," said McGaffey.

Working within the technical parameters provided by Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, Alcatel built a high-speed SONET radio backbone and asynchronous radio link to the utility company's Energy Control Centre.

For Alcatel, this first-of-its-kind project has opened a new avenue of potential business for the Canadian division of a company that operates in more than 130 countries.

"This kind of turnkey approach is the beginning of a trend across Canadian utilities, and it's taking our telecommunications expertise into a different area. We are talking to B.C. Hydro and Hydro Quebec about this turnkey package in which we take on the risks and the utility can concentrate on providing services to its customers," said McGaffey.

For Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, the timely completion of the project has provided a valuable level of security for its consumers.

"With this network upgrade, we now have more confidence in both our reliability and in our service to customers," said Barrett.

Copyright Plesman Publications Ltd. Jul/Aug 2002
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