Quarter million pound investment for Taff Valley Power Network

Over a quarter of a million pound has been spent to further improve power supplies at Ironbridge Primary Substation in Tongwynlais on the outskirts of Cardiff in the Taff Valley.

We are committed to investing in our network to further improve supply reliability and customer service levels.

This new initiative, which started in February last year, involved replacing two 33/11kv transformers, isolators, circuit breakers and feeder protection panels and a complete re-wire of the main substation building.

Projects Engineer Andrew John who headed up the work said: “We’ve installed new distance protection relays on both incoming circuits, and established a new 33kV bus zone protection scheme on site. The installation of the 33kV bus zone and feeder protection will greatly reduce the risk of supply interruptions in the future.

“Ironbridge Primary needed a big refurbishment as most of its equipment was coming to the end of its natural life, as the substation was designed and built back in the 1960s. This investment will not only help to safeguard electricity supplies for the existing 3,000 customers fed from there but will also be able to cater for any additional capacity needed in the future.” said Andrew

The project has not been without its challenges and was a real team effort. Back in March the impact of Covid-19 and the lockdown meant our civil contractors were not able to work and were furloughed, so we weren’t able to resume work on site until June. When work resumed we had to put strict social distancing regulations in place which also caused a few delays.

Ironbridge substation is an important site, providing secondary support to two other Primary substations Ashgrove and Fairwater which also supply customers in the northern part of the city of Cardiff. It is situated along the river Taff and alongside the Taff Trail, a popular route for cyclists and walkers in the area.

The improvements will ensure customers living in the nearby towns of Tongwynlais, Radyr, Taffs Well and Morganstown whose supplies are fed from there will receive a more reliable supply providing security and resilience for the foreseeable future.