Underground grid enhances urban beauty and safety for the people, which is the policy of the province, the electricity and the telecommunications industries. The process of undergrounding lines has been carried out for many years and initially cleared lots of “spider webs”, bringing a new appearance to many roads.
However, the commencement of undergrounding lines still meet many difficulties and troubles.
*Undergrounding more than 100km
In order to contribute to ensuring the urban beauty, improve the safety of the grid system, and reduce the external impacts that can lead to incidents since 1999, Dong Nai Power Co., Ltd (Dong Nai PC) has undergrounded 22kV medium voltage grid system in Bien Hoa city with funding from Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Up to now, the unit has carried out more than 100km of underground cable lines (including medium, low voltage and branches to the customer’s house) on many inner roads. The most recent underground project is Ha Huy Giap street. The unit has built more than 4.5km of mixed medium and low voltage underground cable trenches on the sidewalk along the two sides of the road, arranged 19 cable pulling manholes, 4 RMU cabinet foundations (medium voltage cabinets), 2 concrete foundation of steel tower station, 96 foundation for low voltage distribution cabinets, 70 low voltage manholes.
Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Thanh, Director of Dong Nai PC, said that the underground power grid system is being implemented according to the policy of Bien Hoa City, the province and the electricity industry. Currently, Dong Nai PC is negotiating with the People’s Committee of Bien Hoa City on the plans and cross-sectional drawings and starts to underground the 30-4 route in 2022 (from the roundabout in front of the Provincial People’s Committee to Vuon Mit Post Office). For the remaining inner city roads, Dong Nai PC will coordinate with the Department of Industry and Trade to report to the Provincial People’s Committee to implement the policy. For newly opened roads, the electricity industry coordinates with the road construction unit to build the subway system together with the construction process.
However, according to Mr. Thanh, the process of undergrounding power grid still faces many difficulties such as: sidewalks of some narrow roads, not enough space to arrange and install equipment. In the process of exploitation, many roads have changed their status due to upgrading and expansion, making the underground line move to the road bed. In some areas, people have neither agreed on the policy nor cooperated with the electricity industry for construction. Most construction activities take place at night. In the dry seasons; relevant units such as water supply and drainage and telecommunications have not synchronously coordinated.
Among which, the biggest obstacle in implementing the underground power grid is capital. Over the past years, to ensure the proportion of households using electricity, the company has prioritized capital sources for investment in new development and upgrading grid infrastructure on the provincial scale. Therefore, the capital source for the underground implementation has not been guaranteed, it is difficult to borrow money from banks to underground the power grid because it is not only financially efficient but also socially effective.
*Agreement on policy
At the recent meeting with the provincial leaders, Mr. Nguyen Van Hop, Chairman of the Board of Members of the Southern Power Corporation, said that underground power grid system in inner cities is a major policy of the electricity industry. The underground grid system not only meets the requirements of urban beauty, but also reduces incidents such as fire, explosion, lightning, storms that cause trees to fall, as well as oversized vehicles entangled in lines, causing power outage. Therefore, Mr. Hop proposed the Provincial People’s Committee to agree on a policy of undergrounding and renovating existing power grids in urban areas; considering Dong Nai PC to advance budget capital to implement implicitly, the electricity industry will balance the capital to repay gradually each year or let the electricity borrow money from the province’s preferential loans.
According to Dong Nai PC Director Nguyen Ngoc Thanh, in order for the underground work to be convenient, there must be a consensus on the policy, the cooperation of the government and the consensus of the people. In fact, over the past time, in some areas, people have not yet cooperated to dig roads, installation locations of RMU cabinets, transformer stations, electrical cabinets … although the electricity industry has designed installation locations in different places that get the least impact, using robot to dig the road to minimize the impact on traffic and people’s activities.
“The electricity industry is looking forward to local support in propagating for people to understand and cooperate with the unit in the process of undergrounding lines, placing transformer stations, low voltage cabinets to ensure safe and sufficient power supply for the residents. Allow the digging of roads to renovate lines and underground grids on roads of changed status that have caused the underground cables to move down the roadway ”- Mr. Thanh shared.
Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee Cao Tien Dung said that Bien Hoa city is already a grade I city, Long Khanh city is a grade III city. In the upcoming time, Dong Nai will have more cities and towns such as Long Thanh, Nhon Trach, Trang Bom, but the situation of “spider web” is still popular, damaging urban beauty and causing insecurity for people. The Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee directed the Provincial People’s Committee, the Department of Industry and Trade, the People’s Committees of cities, and the Electricity sector to agree on the policy of underground lines. Regarding capital sources, the provincial leaders said that they would consider preferential loans from the province to the Electricity sector to implement the projects, in which the priority must be given to those supplying adequate electricity to residential, industrial and urban areas.
According to baodongnai.com.vn
