£200,000 investment to power network at St Brides

A £200,000 project has been completed between Newport and Cardiff – part of the work to electrify rail services between London and South Wales.

We're playing a key role in helping to deliver the electrification of the rail network between London and South Wales. WPD Jointer Luke Paul works on the installation of a new 11kV underground cable at Green Lane, St Brides.

We are playing a key role in the initiative, having recently laid 1.2km of high voltage underground cable at St Brides to feed a new primary substation owned and constructed by Network Rail.

WPD Technician Paul Keenan said the substation is designed to supply power exclusively for the railway line electrification.

“Like all our primary substations it is fitted with a battery charger unit which provides a low voltage supply to provide back-up in case of power failure.

“We also used specialist contractors to enable us to tunnel nine metres under a ravine to bring our 11kV cable into place. It was quite a challenging operation because the ground was mostly marshland and so quite unstable at times.”

Other construction challenges included placing cables across a new bridge installed by Network Rail and arranging a one-day road closure.