The city of Tirana keeps adding more new residents each year and investments in its power grid and the energy sector keep growing, bolstering distribution capacities and improving quality power supply to the capital. Power substation at the former Automobile and Tractor Factory area, which provides electricity supply to a considerable number of local residents, as well as to the factories operating in the area, thanks to investments has been recently transformed into a modern infrastructure, featuring state-of-the art technology and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA).
Prime Minister Edi Rama today visited the power substation, where new feeders and transformer cabins have been installed over the past few years.
“The Automobile and Tractor Factory substation provides electricity supply to an important area with a large population and a considerable number of factories and businesses operating in the area. For around a year now, an important investment process has been taking place to add new feeders and transformer cabins. One should not forget that we inherited a degraded power grid here and with the ongoing work and installation of four new feeders it is supposed that a new 200 kilovolt investment will be in place, with all overhanging power lines being replaced by the new feeders. The investment also includes the room that controls entire substation. The investment value is estimated to amount around $13 million by end of the year. I would like to mention the World Bank that has supported this investment, just like it has done in the case of many other energy investments as part of the recovery package,” the Minister of Infrastructure and Energy Belinda Balluku said.
Built in the ‘60s, this substation, one of the most powerful owned by the Albanian Power Distribution Operator (OSHEE), has seen no investment in the past 30 years. But, most recently, an important three-step investment project is underway designed to increase and improve electricity supply to local customers. OSHEE Director-General Ardian Çela said “this is the most powerful out of 174 substations under the power utility’s administration. It is the biggest power substation and it provides power supply to around 211,000 residents. The substation has been built in the ‘60s and no investment had been implemented over the past 30 years. The latest investment is the one we have launched two years ago. The project is divided into three stages with the investment worth of around $13 million. We have invested around $9 million to date and the 35 feeders installed in the 70s are all being replaced. In the meantime, we have also built and reconstructed around 130 transformer cabins, with more than half of them being completely automatically controlled remotely. This substation is part of the control system architecture and is monitored by the SCADA system built at the central OSHEE headquarters. We started the project by installing the SCADA system first in six substations and we will complete construction of such online control system in all power substations in Durres and Tirana next year. Installation of this system will help improve supply quality, as well as supply security for residents. The investment we have launched and is set to complete in the first quarter of 2021 includes around 40,000 residents and it includes installation of six new feeders and replacement of seven others, whereas 20 transformer cabins will be either reconstructed or built from scratch.”
Infrastructure and Energy Minister Belinda Balluku noted that the distribution network losses have been significantly reduced compared to 2013. “If we are to refer the energy security and power distribution, we should highlight that the power distribution losses accounted for 45% in 2013, whereas losses today are estimated at around 21.8%.” OSHEE Director said that the power utility aims at cutting the distribution network losses to 21 %.
The government head visited the substation’s control and supervisory room. The engineer explained that the system installed in this room provides for the real time supervision and control of the substation’s parameters, the network’s voltage load and commands are issued so that operative personnel is not forced to go out and instead monitor the situation online.
PM Rama noted that in past seven years more investments have been developed in the power distribution system and water supply system than in several decades combined.
“This is the most densely populated area which keeps growing and the SCADA system represents an absolutely true revolution compared to the situation we were in previously. A lot more has been done in past seven years than in several decades combined as these are all infrastructures we inherit since in the ‘70s, including the water supply infrastructure. Work is underway to construct water supply systems in 55 major urban areas across Albania and these projects will completely transform the water supply systems most of them built in the ‘60s, 70s and in early ‘80s. Maintenance projects have been implemented in these systems, but no true investments. We haven’t been given the opportunity to invest earlier as we inherited a burden of debts and arrears that needed to be settled gradually. But to imagine that while the demographics have changed radically, that consumers have grown exponentially in urban areas and whether water supply or energy supply is left to those networks built at that time for that kind of population and for that kind of consumption that was completely different consumption is something completely unimaginable. No strategy to build them step by step has been ever developed. And when I imagine where we could have been today should these investments we are implementing today were to be developed earlier, it is really disappointing, yet we can do nothing about that,” he said.
