The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) has awarded the Zinfra Power Projects team as winners of the Recovery Award in the 2020 Emergency Response Awards for their work on the Western Transmission Tower Rebuild project at Cressy, VIC.
This well-deserved recognition is in acknowledgement of the Power Project team’s extraordinary response to extreme weather on Sunday 31 January 2020 that saw a Microburst (convective downdraft wind gusts) cause the collapse of six consecutive 500 kV double-circuit towers and severe damage to a seventh.
Within weeks, the Cressy team worked tirelessly to restore service to customers through two temporary lines, followed by twelve months to complete the restoration of the permanent transmission towers.
Throughout the restoration the team were required to replace:
175 km of conductor, ground wire and OPGW
1800m of vertical heights of ERS masts
33,000m of guy wires
900T of concrete blocks
275T of tower steel
100+ individual components of line hardware
1,200m of running length of foundation piling
1,200 cu.m. of foundation concrete
150T of foundation reinforcement steel
"This achievement demonstrates the commitment our team has to working and living the Zinfra values and establishing Zinfra as the industry's Trusted Partner in Energy", said David O'Hara, General Manager - Power Projects. " Thank you to the entire team involved in this project. It was a collaborative effort between the client AusNet Services and Zinfra, with the field team demonstrating how Zinfra can provide solutions to the most complex power transmission problems."
Tom Kuhn, EEI President congratulated the team and their professional commitment during the Recovery process, "I continue to be inspired by the work of our response teams across the industry, meeting incredible challenges day in and out in service of our customers and communities. Congratulations to you and all the people who make this work possible."
