Actively improve rural power grid infrastructure

(Baonghean) - After handing over the low-voltage grid to the electricity industry for management, there have been a number of investment projects to renovate and replace rural grid infrastructure to ensure quality and promote service efficiency. However, due to large investment costs, the electricity industry has not been able to implement synchronously. Currently, the whole province still has over 7,894 km of low-voltage grid that needs to be renovated. The electricity industry is actively implementing plans to ensure a stable grid, especially during the rainy and stormy season.

Mr. Nguyen Duc Vinh in Hamlet 7, Dong Son Commune (Do Luong) shared: "For nearly 20 years, households in the hamlet have been using electricity with bare aluminum wires invested by the people themselves, the quality of electricity is not guaranteed, causing power loss. In particular, every rainy and stormy season always poses a potential risk to the safety of people and livestock. Now the Electricity industry has invested in replacing the twisted cable-covered line system to ensure quality and new, sturdy electric poles, creating peace of mind for people to use. People can also use 3-phase electricity for production, which is also a great advantage."

Do Luong Electricity manages over 1,000 km of 0.4 KV single-phase and three-phase power grid. Through many tornadoes and storms, the Electricity sector has replaced many low-quality broken power poles. Every year, the District Electricity focuses on repairing the power grid infrastructure to improve power quality and ensure more safety during the storm season. In 2 years (2013, 2014), Do Luong Electricity has replaced over 500 power poles of all kinds. Recently, in June 2015, a tornado occurred in the area of ​​3 communes Tru Son, Dai Son, Hien Son, causing more than 40 power poles to fall and 4,000m of various types of power lines to be damaged. Currently, a plan and list of repairs have been developed...

Do Luong Electricity staff replace power lines in Dong Son commune.

Mr. Nguyen Van Toan, Head of Do Luong Electricity Technical Department, said: With 166 transformer stations in the district, currently about 40% of the stations are operating both bare and covered wires, 15% of the transformer stations are operating bare wires, poor quality conductors, small wires, low poles. Although significant investment has been made in renovation in the past, with a large number of recipients, while the investment capital is large, with a completed renovation station costing about 20 billion VND, it is very difficult to find capital. Currently, it is worrying that many bare grid lines and rural grid corridors passing through people's gardens with trees can easily lead to the risk of grid insecurity, especially during the rainy and stormy season.

Poor quality power line in hamlet 4, Dong Son commune - Do Luong,

As for Anh Son district, the area is widespread, the whole district has more than 300 km of 35 KV lines, over 600 km of 0.4 KV lines and 157 transformer stations with a total capacity of 46,185 KVA. In previous years, the power grid system invested by the people was old and dilapidated, the power supply radius was large, the pole system was mainly bamboo, wood, self-cast concrete poles, the power grid infrastructure was not guaranteed. After handing over to the Electricity sector for management, the sector has invested in renovation. From the loan capital from the German Reconstruction Bank of nearly 60 billion VND, the power grid infrastructure in the district was renovated from 2010 to 2014, with an investment of 2.5 billion VND/commune. The results in 4 years have been the construction of 6 new transformer stations with capacity of 960 KVA, investment in 2,888m of new low voltage lines, renovation of 94,228m of low voltage lines 0.4KV and investment in 5,078m of new 35KV lines (high voltage). At the same time, overloading of lines and transformer stations has been prevented: 2 stations with capacity of 360KVA, 1,500m of high voltage lines, and 6 additional field transformer stations with capacity of 1,080 KVA. In addition, annual investment in renovation with regular repair budget of 350 million VND.

Although regular repairs have been paid attention to, to invest in renovating and replacing the synchronous power grid infrastructure in the entire district requires a huge amount of funding, so the Electricity industry cannot do it all at once. Therefore, in the district, there are still about 180 km of 0.4KV and 0.2KV bare aluminum wire lines (accounting for 30%) that need to be invested in and renovated to ensure power grid safety for the people. Mr. Ngu Van Chuong, Director of Anh Son Electricity, said: “To cope with this year's rainy and stormy season, we have surveyed and grasped the situation of key power lines to have a plan to focus on replacing wires, strengthening the system of power poles, power lines, transformer stations, and points at risk of landslides, flash floods, and flash floods in Thanh Son, Binh Son, Tho Son communes, and Veu village area, Phuc Son commune. At the same time, we are preparing spare materials of all types, closely monitoring weather developments to have timely solutions. Everything is ready with the spirit of "4 on-site" to ensure electricity supply for the people.

Currently, in Nghe An province, the low voltage grid has a total length of 15,123 km, of which the rural low voltage grid is 11,600 km. The low voltage grid after receiving is mostly very old and dilapidated, does not ensure safe operation and has high power loss, most of the transformer stations often have a wide power supply radius leading to low voltage lines, poor power quality and high power loss. The worrying fact is that the corridor is not regularly guaranteed, the 0.4KV low voltage grid often has short circuits between phases causing incidents, potentially causing transformer fires.

According to Mr. Tran Duc Dung, Deputy Head of Technical Department of Nghe An Power Company: To cope with the 2015 storm season, the company organized to review and handle weak points such as arc contacts, rudders, joints on the power line, pole positions at risk of landslides, tilting; organized to clear the corridor of medium and low voltage power grid; at the same time, supplemented plans for storm and flood prevention, plans for handling incidents, overcoming the consequences of natural disasters according to the actual situation of each unit. Nghe An Power Company coordinated with Khanh Vinh Electric Pole Manufacturing Company in the area to be ready to supply electric poles for replacement when incidents occur in the whole province. In addition, the company has reserved 20 - 25 mobile assembled iron poles to be ready to supply to districts to quickly restore incidents. For medium and low voltage cables, each type has a spare 2,000 - 3,000m, the total spare wire types include 12,000m. Transformers are also reserved with voltage levels of 35KV, 22kV, 10KV/0.4kV, ready to supply electricity to districts....

However, in the face of the potential of the rural low-voltage grid, Nghe An Electricity Company is directing the Electricity of districts, cities and towns to closely coordinate with local authorities to widely propagate to the people to prevent and actively cooperate with the Electricity industry in protecting and using electricity safely during the rainy and stormy season as well as in the long term.

Quynh Lan