An official ceremony to commemorate the reopening of the Richmond Power Plant will take place tomorrow.
The Richmond Power Plant is one of three hydro stations owned and operated by St. Vincent Electricity Services Limited, VINLEC. Rehabilitation work at the station commenced in 2013 as part of VINLEC’s Hydro Rehabilitation Project.
VINLEC’s Manager Engineering, Dr. Vaughn Lewis said the design life of a hydro power station is usually about 50 years and that the Company commenced a feasibility study in 2008 to determine the most suitable options for the hydro plants. He noted that a decision was made to do rehabilitation work at the Richmond and South Rivers Stations
.
According to Dr. Lewis, work on the project commenced at Richmond in 2013 ahead of the historic December 2013 floods. He said because of the extensive damage to the pipeline, the Company made a decision to revisit some areas of the project.
A decision was made to replace the traditional wood stave pipes with Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) pipes. Approximately one kilometer of pipe along the route was replaced and these were buried, as opposed to being installed above ground.
Dr. Lewis said that major work was undertaken on the two units at the Station and that various components were changed including the turbine runners, alternators as well as the controls on the system. At the Richmond Station, two transformers for the generators were also changed and civil works was done on the Power Station building. Rehabilitation work was also done on the surge tower, tank and intake. The Richmond Power Station is now automated and is being monitored and controlled from the Cumberland Station.
Tomorrow’s ceremony will take place at the Richmond Power Station compound from 3:00 pm.
The feature address will be delivered by Prime Minister and Minister of Energy – Dr. Ralph Gonsalves. VINLEC’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Thornley Myers will deliver remarks while Senior Generation Engineer Mr. Augustus Ambrose will give an overview of the project.
The Rehabilitation Project is one of the largest capital projects in the history of the Company and was completed at a cost of approximately twenty million dollars.
