Grid dynamics in the Gulf

10 June 2014 - Events

Initially selected by the electricity grid operator in the Gulf countries to install security systems for eight 400 kV substations spread over five countries, VINCI Energies has since taken on a large number of additional jobs for which it builds on synergies between its local entities and teams from Omexom, the Vinci Energies brand specialising in generation, transmission and transformation projects.

This was a large and sensitive international project involving responsibility for security at eight substations along an electrical grid spread over five Gulf countries. The client is the Gulf Cooperation Council Interconnection Authority (GCCIA), set up in 2001 to manage the electricity grid in the Gulf Cooperation Council member countries after they undertook to interconnect their grids following a blackout in Kuwait. The interconnection was a colossal undertaking involving the construction of an 863 km long high voltage line.

VINCI Energies was already familiar with the region. Cegelec, which joined Vinci in 2010, had been operating in the Gulf since the early 1970s, having set up its entity in Bahrain in 1972 and created further entities in the United Arab Emirates in 1978, Qatar in 2004 and Saudi Arabia – where the GCCIA head office is located – in 2010.

The first contract, with a value of €7 million, covered the full range of infrastructure needed to ensure security at eight 400 kV substations in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. This project used Cegelec's Iperflex security system for the first time outside France.

Advendi, a VINCI Energies business unit dedicated to security (access control, video surveillance, intrusion, flow management and supervision), handled design and coordinated the studies. The business unit's back office in Marseille configured the system, which has four main components: a perimeter detection system, thermal cameras connected to an image analysis system, an access control system and surveillance cameras located inside and outside the buildings.

Once all the sites had been secured, the Cegelec Saudi teams won the contract to maintain the substations and the lines and to manage the HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) converter that interconnects Saudi Arabia's 60 Hz grid and the 50 Hz grids of the other GCC countries.

Cegelec Saudi calls on a variety of VINCI Energies entities in Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to perform this work.

As part of its maintenance operations, Cegelec Saudi is in charge of overseeing the teams of the original system builder – Alstom in this case – and scheduling their work. Five people are responsible for permanently monitoring the operation of this site to ensure it runs without a hitch. Geography is more of a problem when it comes to maintaining the high voltage lines, which stretch over hundreds of kilometres. The 1,770 towers are inspected every three months. In the summer, when temperatures can exceed 50°C and personnel are unable to leave their vehicle for long periods of time, inspections are abridged. An "overhead" inspection of the line is carried out once every two years. Optical fibre lines installed at the top of each tower to ensure communication between the different substations also require annual inspections.

These constraints prompted the Omexom Nîmes and Cegelec Saudi teams to introduce new solutions. For example, a tablet-based software system is used to support efficient ground inspections and more rapid inspection report generation. The use of a drone will soon facilitate line inspections.

These successive contracts significantly broaden VINCI Energies' range of operations in the region. The customer awarded a new contract to Cegelec Infra in January 2014 covering construction of the optical fibre connection that will transmit all substation data to the authority's new head office in Dammam. In the medium term, the construction of a second line parallel to the existing line and a planned interconnection between Saudi Arabia and Egypt could further expand Omexom's roots in the Gulf.