Palmerston North power line removal

An almost 3km stretch of power poles and lines along one of Palmerston North’s main streets is about to be removed, marking the end of a $27.4 million, five-year electricity investment programme in the city.

Work is scheduled to begin next week to remove 50 poles and 2.9 km of power lines between Powerco’s Keith St substation and its Main St substation.

No power outages are planned for customers for this work. To allow the work to be carried out safely, however, traffic management will be needed at times along parts of Keith St, State Highway 3 and Main Street.

The overhead power line was constructed in September 2016 to temporarily secure the electricity supply to the city’s CBD, following the failure of one of the three underground cables supplying the Main Street substation.

Since 2018, Powerco has been working on a series of major electricity upgrade projects in Palmerston to expand, renew and rebalance its assets to ensure customers continue to have a secure electricity supply now and in the future.

The projects have included:

• Constructing a new substation on the corner of Linton and Ferguson streets
• Installing of a second transformer at the new substation
• Upgrading underground cabling between Linton and Pascal Street substations
• Constructing a new indoor 33kV switchroom at the Linton substation
• Constructing two new underground circuits from Linton substation to the new Ferguson St substation
• Installing larger capacity cables between Ferguson and Main Street substations

“The Palmerston North CBD is the second-largest central business district we serve, and our largest exclusively underground network. We’re pleased to have been able to deliver these electricity upgrades to the people of Palmerston North, which will secure the city’s electricity supply now and allow for future growth,” Powerco General Manager Karen Frew says.

“I want to personally thank our customers on the various work routes and the wider Palmerston North community for their patience and understanding while all these major projects were carried out,” Karen Frew says.

For more information about the work that has taken place in Palmerston North during the past five years, click here.