What is Project Whakareri - and how is it helping the inner city?
Project Whakareri is Wellington Electricity’s name for its Frederick Street cable upgrade.
Extract from the website:
As the city continues to grow, we're getting ready for the future by ensuring that our supply of electricity can meet demand. The new, modern cables will allow us to achieve this by increasing the amount of capacity available….
… We're replacing major underground cables that we use to transport electricity from the National Grid to our network. The cables run from Transpower's Central Park substation (off Brooklyn Road) to our Frederick Street substation.
The Frederick Street substation is the main power hub for the area, supplying approximately 6,300 residential and 1,800 commercial properties via a downstream network of cables and smaller substations. These substations supply electricity primarily to the Wellington suburbs of Te Aro, Mount Victoria and Mount Cook, and to some parts of Oriental Bay, Newtown and Wellington Central.
The new cables have also been designed to better withstand earthquakes, improving the resilience of our network and the electricity supply for consumers in these areas.
We’re also going to be installing new communications cables and upgrading our control and protection systems. These changes will all help increase the reliability of the area’s power supply and reduce the impact that power outages can bring.
Status as at 1 February 2022
We’re now nearing completion of the main part of the project, with most of the ducting for our new cables having been installed. This means that we’ll be carrying out the final steps needed to get the cables up and running soon.
The remaining work involves us opening up three ‘joint bays’ (shown on the map below). These are pits in the ground that will allow us to complete the installation. We’ll be working around the substations – also marked on the map – at the same time.
The timeframe for the completion of works around the Frederick Street substation pit and Joint Bay 1 has been extended to mid-February.
