Milford Sound Infrastructure

Replacement Water Main to Storage Tanks

Milford Infrastructure — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:35:15 +0000

The existing alcathene water main has deteriorated to the point where replacement is necessary. A high-pressure 55mm main will be installed.

Replacement Main Switchboard at Milford Village

Milford Infrastructure — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:34:58 +0000

The existing switchboard at Milford Village is the original Milford Hotel board which is in excess of 50 years old. MSI will replace the switchboard with a new board that meets the latest electrical standards. When the new switchboard is installed, there will need to be a one day shut down of the Village power supply. The outage will be carefully planned in association with MSI’s Village customers in order to minimise the disruption to their respective businesses.

Milford Sound Lodge Utilities Trench

Milford Infrastructure — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:07:14 +0000

A trench will be completed from the Cleddau Residential Area to Milford Sound Lodge to enable electrical, gas, water and waste water connections and well as additional Telecom lines. The major benefits arising from this work will be the removal of diesel generation from the Lodge and cessation of septic tank discharge into the Cleddau River. All waste water will go into to the MDA Milford Treatment Plant.

Turbidity management

Milford Infrastructure — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:06:51 +0000

A control scheme will be installed to shut off the water intake from the hydro penstock when sediment levels reach a pre-set threshold. This will mitigate the high sediment content water from entering the main storage tanks and discolouring customers’ water.

LPG Facility

Milford Infrastructure — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:06:13 +0000

MSI will progress the establishment of a LPG facility at Milford with view to offering reticulated gas and a bottle filling facility. The Concession has been lodged with Department of Conservation.

Hydro Intake Clean-up

Milford Infrastructure — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:32:46 +0000

Earlier in the year we installed a new tool shed at the intake and took the opportunity to remove the old shed, an obsolete compressor building and other surplus materials from the site.

Hydro Generation

Milford Infrastructure — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:32:23 +0000

The main (Chinese) hydro generator is performing well following significant expenditure over the past two years repairing the penstock leaks between the intake and the stilling tank and replacing the main actuator shaft. We have also completed refurbishment of some parts of the Gilks hydro (the original Hotel unit) as this is still a good reliable backup for the main unit.

During August we experienced a period of very low flows in the Bowen River, where the hydro intake is situated. The low flows had the effect of restricting peak generation and we had to implement load shedding in order to prevent disruption to supply. In the past we have experienced similar low flows but normally around March – April.

Diesel Generation

Milford Infrastructure — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:32:06 +0000

A new Cummins 480KW diesel genset has been purchased to improve the reliability of the electricity supply at Milford. The main GM standby genset is in need of major refurbishment work and will be used sparingly over the next few months until the new unit can be installed in the Diesel Powerhouse. Recently the GM genset experienced a prolonged outage when a cooling line burst at the same time that our maintenance staff were cleaning debris out of the hydro intake. MSI sincerely apologises for the inconvenience caused to several of our customers.

Once installed the new generator will be able to be synchronised with the hydro generation and thus we will have approximately 900KW of capacity available which will be more than enough to cope with peak power requirements for the foreseeable future. The two small obsolete Lister gensets that were housed in the Diesel Powerhouse have been disposed of to make room for the new unit.

New Main Village Switchboard

Milford Infrastructure — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:31:48 +0000

MSI is planning to install a new main switchboard to replace the main village board in the Diesel Powerhouse.

This work will be scheduled to minimize disruption to electricity supply and will be completed over one day during November. We will advise all customers when this will occur in good time and what the duration of the disruption will be and what arrangements we will have in place to mitigate any adverse affects. This is a “1 in 50” year event and so we trust customers will be understanding of any inconvenience.

Load Growth

Milford Infrastructure — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:30:55 +0000

This winter we have experienced some very high electricity peak loads and the recently installed load monitoring system is proving valuable in understanding the load patterns. Some peaks have reached 480KW.