In late 2022, Jemena’s Electricity Network team has achieved a significant milestone, building and commissioning a new zone substation at Yallambie for the North East Link Program (NELP), the biggest ever investment in road transport infrastructure in Victoria – changing the way people move around in Melbourne.

The new zone substation will provide dedicated 22kV electricity supply for the construction and operation of twin three-lane tunnels which will extend 6.5km between Watsonia and Bulleen.  

Jemena’s electricity supply will initially power the two massive tunnel boring machines – which are among the biggest in the southern hemisphere - before shifting to provide critical power to the ongoing operation of the ventilation, lighting, and emergency systems within the tunnels.

Kav Thananjeyan from Jemena’s Network Investment and Delivery team led the project. Kav said work on the new zone substation commenced as far back as 2018 with the associated feasibility studies prepared by our engineers.

“We started working with the NELP team early in the development phase of the project. The natural demonstration of our expertise during our liaison with NELP instilled the confidence the customer needed to entrust us with the delivery of this critical piece of the puzzle,” said Kav.

“We build zone substations all the time, but usually these projects are network-initiated and based on suburb growth. It’s not often a single customer’s supply requirement dictates the need for a new zone substation, so it was unique in this sense.” 

Kav said it was a challenging undertaking but also truly exciting to have worked on such a complex project involving so many different interfaces on the technical, commercial, and social fronts. 

“I was fortunate to have closely overseen the project from concept to construction completion and also to have been given the opportunity to mould the project to meet NELP’s requirements, which included the State’s Environmental Performance Requirements and adherence to the Urban Design Strategy. 

“This saw us install a new visually impressive, but equally effective security fence - one of many new updates to our typical zone substation design and implemented for the first time on our network as part of this project.

“It is fantastic to see we are building strong expertise in supporting big, complex customer projects, and to be embedded in this great momentum Jemena has in this space, as we look to do more of this capacity-building work in the near future. 

“Without question, we will be using the knowledge and skills gained on this journey to deliver equally progressive zone substation solutions for our new and repeat customers in the future,” he said.