An Iraqi worker prepares to install the power cables to the transmission towers for Al Zuite 33kV overhead project, one of the seven 33kV feeder lines for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects in Maysan Province. (USACE photo)
Posted on 12/17/2007 4:34:06 PM PST by SandRat
Maysan is upgrading its electrical distribution network. So far, 155 kilometers of overhead cables, 467 kilometers of underground wires, and 1,075 towers have been installed, according to Barry D. Stuard, resident engineer for Maysan resident office of the Gulf Region South (GRS) district of the USACE.
Stuard said four 33kV feeder line projects were completed recently in Maysan and that three more projects are expected to be finished by the first quarter of next year.
“The new projects significantly and immediately benefit people in more than 25 neighborhoods in the area,” said an Iraqi project engineer with the Maysan resident office.
He said the people in this area lack electricity but before long will have a dependable electrical network.
“These are the only feeder line projects that are going on in Maysan,” Stuard said. “However, it will connect all of Maysan’s seven new electrical 33kV substations that GRS has built to the electrical network to help provide more electrical power to the entire province.”
The projects cost $12 million and aim to complete the power grid in Maysan, Stuard said. And once the country has the capability to produce enough power, the feeder lines and sub-stations to the network can distribute it out to the entire province, he added.
Stuart said this huge task started with the assessment of electrical stations and condition of the feeders that connected them. He said the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity specified how they wanted the feeders; overhead or underground. Next came coordinating the installation of the new feeders with minimal interruption of the old feeders. After that came the long drawn out tasks of the constructing and installing overhead feeder towers, providing feeder lines and digging trenches for the underground feeders.
Stuard, who has worked for the USACE for eight years, deployed from the Little Rock District, Ark., and signed up for a six-month tour. “We are helping people and all these projects benefit everyone in the area,” he said.
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