Bayswater substation

The challenge

We need to find a solution to manage the increasing energy demand in Bayswater, particularly in the vicinity west of Tonkin Highway and south of Collier Road.

At this stage one preferred solution is to establish a new zone substation, this will cater for the growth in Bayswater and that will also reduce the strain on our existing Hadfields zone substation, located on the corner of Collier Road and Baltic Court, Bassendean. Our Network Planning and Development Branch, who monitor and forecast current and future energy demands placed upon existing zone substations, have identified the requirement for an additional substation to be in place in five to ten years.

While forecasts currently indicate that a solution is required in the future we must point out that forecasting so far into the future can sometimes result in unforseen scheduling or load demand changes occurring due to events such as new technologies becoming available, increased demand side management practices being integrated into the community or even unexpected and rapid growth affecting the initial forecasting indicators.

Community involvement

As part of our regular review of load projections and forecast planning for our network, the South West Interconnected System, we are required to review all projects to ensure the reliability and security of our network.

A recent review of our load projections has shown that a zone substation would not be required in Bayswater for at least five to ten years. Given that this is still a number of years away, we do not have any site locations earmarked as potential options at this stage.

Our initial contact with the community in March was to gather local constraints and opportunities that we could include with our research as we progress with the project in the future. When we are at the stage to start looking at site options, we will be engaging with the community once again to gather feedback on the options and also to see whether there are any other sites that we haven't considered.
 
We will continue to update the community as we gather information for this project. We will directly contact those who have registered for the Community Contact list, if you would like to join this list please contact Jason Haydock on the details below.

Study Area

Below are two maps that show the proposed study area. At this stage we are only gathering information and feedback – we are yet to investigate any site options.

Bayswater Study Area Map – suburban level (PDF 3.31mb - large file)
Bayswater Study Area Map – local level (PDF 1.08mb)

About substations

There are many interconnecting pieces of infrastructure that make up the Western Power electricity network - taking the power from power stations, which are typically fuelled by coal, gas or wind, and delivering it through to your homes and businesses via infrastructure such as substations, transmission lines and distribution lines.

Electricity created at power stations is delivered to your local zone substation via high voltage transmission lines. Your substation then converts the power to a lower voltage, making it compatible to travel directly to your home and community businesses via the lower voltage distribution lines.

Identifying a site location for the new substation

Western Power must accommodate a variety of complexities when searching for substation site locations, including environmental, social, cost and technical factors.

Listed below are a few of the constraints and considerations that we have to take into account for this project:

  • The substation needs to be centrally located to the load area that it will service.
  • The substation should be as close as possible to the existing transmission power lines from which it will draw its power.
  • The substation site must allow for the connection of incoming transmission lines and outgoing underground distribution lines.
  • The substation should be close enough to houses and businesses so as to make the establishment of distribution lines economically and logistically possible.
  • The substation site needs to be far enough away from underground copper cables (eg telecommunications cables) and the steel pipe lines used by gas and water companies, so that ‘earthing’ and induction issues can be avoided. Where this can not be avoided, the costs to mitigate these issues can be extreme.
  • The substation site is most ideally located on flat land.

Useful links

Contact us

For further information about the works, please contact Western Power’s Project Coordinator, Jason Haydock, via the contact details below:

Telephone:  08 9326 6074
Email:   jason.haydock@westernpower.com.au

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