Western Power Eneabba Terminal Construction

Jul 2019 – May 2020

In Jul 2019 Global Power Services awarded Pathfinder a contract involving the delivery of communications and networking equipment and infrastructure for the project to establish the Warradarge Windfarm and new 330kV Eneabba terminal for Western Power, the largest electricity network utility in Western Australia.

The initial task for Pathfinder on this major utility project was to take delivery and fit out communications racks for the new sites. This involved the management of customer-supplied materials such as Keymile multiplexers and Cisco Ethernet switches as well as specialist procurement of technical materials for inclusion in the systems.

Apart from fitting out and installing new communications equipment racks at the new wind farm site and terminal site, Pathfinder also had responsibility to perform equipment modifications and upgrades at 8 other locations so as to enable the integration of these new sites into the existing communications network.
This involved modifications to long haul multiplexer devices (Keymile XMC family products), microwave transmission equipment, changes to power systems and cabling and a complex array of brown-fields modifications such as upgrading interfaces and changes to patching.

With respect to optical fibre cabling tasks, Pathfinder supplied and installed conventional loose tube cable, MTP cables, high-strength type cable and the related joints and enclosures. We also performed splicing and termination of OPGW cables at several sites, including an outage to tie-in the new OPGW lines to existing HV transmission lines in the area.

Pathfinder technicians worked with the aerial rigging contractor to establish updated and upgraded microwave back-haul connections to pre-existing sites in the utility network via NEC iPASOLINK IDU and ODU devices

At the main wind farm and terminal sites Pathfinder performing complex cabling installation tasks involving multiple services, protocols and cabling technologies. Pathfinder also installed, tested and commissioned the 48V DC rectifier systems at the sites, including provision of the AC interconnections to feed the new systems.