Underground cabling the way to go

The Barbados Association of Professional Engineers (BAPE) is calling on the current administration to seriously examine the feasibility of moving the country’s main utilities infrastructure underground over the long-term.

President of BAPE, Lieutenant Colonel Trevor Browne declared that with more than 90 per cent of the country’s public service infrastructure, particularly electricity above ground, the setback from a major hurricane could last months.

Twenty-four hours after the passage of category one Hurricane Elsa, the Barbados Light and Power (BL&P) Company Ltd revealed that some 80 per cent of customers had been restored. Officials, however, warned that with 200 poles, 45 transformers and 100 kilometres of wires all out of commission, some households could be without electricity for up to a week.

Senior Communications Manager for telecommunications giant FLOW, Marilyn Sealy, has also conceded that Friday’s severe weather event was a “major test” for the company’s infrastructure.

With some districts still in darkness even on Monday evening, a debate has been raging about whether the country’s monopoly power company had fallen short of its corporate and social responsibility.

Lieutenant Colonel Browne, however contended, that a fuller discussion on this country’s infrastructure that focuses on the state of the utility network ought to be seriously considered.

“Our electric utilities, the telephone utilities, these are all 90 per cent above ground, open to trees falling on them, to wind blowing poles down. We have almost built a system with the understanding that nothing is going to happen so therefore if we were ever to get a serious direct hit, it could be quite traumatic,” Browne told Barbados TODAY.

“The truth is we should probably start with the utilities because utilities are central and fundamental to rebuilding after you have a system. So if you could start with the utilities 90 per cent in tact after a storm, that is a major plus for a country. If the roads are there, the electricity is largely working, the communication systems are working, it is a major plus for a country to start from that position,” he added.

The retired Lieutenant Colonel acknowledged that the cost of transitioning from overhead utilities to an underground system would be extremely costly, but floated the idea of a gradual change.

“In the case of our overhead utilities for instance, we know that it will cost a lot to go underground. We do not expect the Government to go to a power company and say ‘spend $5 billion and put everything underground’,” the

“But there’s nothing that says there can’t be a plan in place and every year we will put three to five per cent underground. So we are not going to spend $5 billion, but we will invest $10 million every year, so that by 2030 or 2040 you know that maybe 50 per cent is underground. So that, if you have a storm, you know that you only have to worry about the other 50 per cent that is damaged,” he concluded. (KS)