wiredinUSA April 2012

INDEX

EHV expansion

Services disrupted by fiber cable cuts

Kenya Power to fund underground cabling

Grid solution for Kuwait

Doha Cables, the Qatar-based manufacturer of high voltage cables, has announced plans to expand the manufacture of its 400kV and 500kV cable ranges. Ahmed Fathy El Sewedy, vice president of the Elsewedy Cables subsidiary, said that plans are underway to expand production. “We are currently working on expanding the manufacturing of our extra high voltage cables to produce 400kV and 500kV cables. We are also expanding in the field of super conductors,” El Sewedy said. With Qatar’s goal to expand the local tourism industry to accommodate both the 2020 Olympics and the 2022 FIFA World Cup, “There has been an increase in the number of projects in the field of infrastructure, as well as a growing demand in the building sector,” he added. “Globally there has been a general decline in demand as well as an oversupply of cables in the market. We’re working to not only be a cables provider, but also to be a solutions provider. This will allow us to be competitive in both service and supply,” El Sewedy explained. He said that the company planned to expand its operations to some of the fastest growth economies in the world.

During mid-March, Altech Kenya Data Networks experienced service degradation as a result of three major cuts on its core fiber on the Mombasa-Nairobi route. Altech KDN, Seacom’s anchor tenant in East Africa, said the fault affected KDN’s primary and secondary fiber backhauls to and from Mombasa thus causing downtime for internet services. The first fault was located near the Miritini area on 13 th March, occasioned by another operator who was restoring their cable. The second cut occurred on 14 th March near the Jomvu area, where KDN’s cables were exposed by a road contractor. The cable was consequently vandalized, but the company’s engineers managed to resolve the fault in less than two hours. The third cut was damaged by a contractor creating a road diversion for access between Mazeras - Miritini. CEO Shahab Meshki has since apologized to customers for the outages and said that his technical team was working round the clock to minimize the downtime experienced and restore services. He also indicated that Altech is working to increase resilient routes on this and other routes.

Alstom Grid has been selected by the Kuwait Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) to further modernize its grid operations and enhance the management of its network assets through the implementation of a fully integrated grid management solution. The project will include an upgrade of Kuwait town district control center’s energy management system (EMS), a new integrated distribution management e-terradistribution solutions, Alstom will create a single system for managing the medium- and high-voltage operations of the Kuwait Town District control center. In addition to managing the real-time operations of the grid, the system access will be extended to maintenance departments to better manage MEW’s assets, review their health index, and decide on appropriate maintenance strategies. This new approach combines the previously separated operation and maintenance processes, allowing the operators to have a holistic view of the entire system for increased reliability and efficiency. system (IDMS) and an asset management system (AMS). AMEinfo reports that, through its advanced e-terraplatform and

Kenya Power plans to raise 20 billion shillings ($241.7 million) to convert overhead power lines into underground cables. Kenya Power is the sole transmission and distribution utility in east Africa’s largest economy, where blackouts are common due to generation shortfalls and an aging grid. Joseph Njoroge, the chief executive officer of the power firm, said in a statement that the underground project is set to begin next year, and will convert a total of 2,215km of power lines in three major cities Nairobi, Mombasa and Ki- sumu. Njoroge said his company was considering a proposal by the Chinese company, China National Machinery Equipment Import and Export Corporation (CMEC) to carry out the underground cabling in Nairobi. The removal of the overhead network will start in the capital, which is the most affected by frequent blackouts, some of which are a result of motorists knocking down electric poles.

ASIA / AFRICA NEWS

wiredInUSA - April 2012

wiredInUSA - April 2012

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