Transmission & Distribution

The Transmission and Distribution [T&D] Department has always been an integral part of the functioning of the then named Nevis Electricity Department, now known as the Nevis Electricity Company Limited [NEVLEC]. Its original role was grouped generally as:

• The planning and execution of line projects
• Maintenance of the system

To be more efficient in its operation we have fine tuned the responsibility of this department

• Operation and Maintenance of the distribution lines and its hardware.
• The metering and inspection of the industrial commercial and residential customers.
• Emergency response to fault calls.

The vision of the T&D department is to improve the reliability of the supply and to maintain a high power quality standard to all customers. Our mission is to provide a proactive approach to the operations within T&D and interlink the objectives of this department to those of the other departments to achieve the overall objectives stipulated by NEVLEC.

Objectives of the T & D Department

• Produce a five (5) years action plan regarding the operation and maintenance of the system.
• Reduce technical loss to 10% at the end of 2010.
• Reduce non-technical loss to 4% by 2006.
• Respond to emergency call within 1 hour of receiving call by the end of 2006.
• Address all customer complaints/request within 3 working days. If the complexity of the job doesn’t permit this, notification of when it will be done will be communicated to the customer within those initial 3 working days.
• No customer be out of supply more than 24 hours.
• All employee receive training as pertaining to its field by the end of 2006.
• All work to be done follows the guidelines outlined in NEVLEC’S construction standards.
• All workers obey the safety standards outlined in NEVLEC’s ‘Safety Standard Manual’.
• Up to date vegetation management.
• Workers are provided with the necessary tools and safety gears to perform their task effective and efficiently by 2006.
• Improve power quality by 70% by 2007.
• Reduce feeder outages to single figures by 2007.

Initiatives of the T & D Department

• Develop work procedures, methods and guidelines to support the function of the department and its interfaces.
• Develop, plan and implement work programmes and orders for the sections within the department.
• Work with Planning in the development and implementation of the Loss Reduction Programme.
• Develop and implement a system refurbishing of distribution network.
• Provide all staff with training and opportunities for self development.
• Develop and implement a transformer utilization and load balancing programme.
• Investigate, develop and implement a distribution network earthing/grounding system.

Divisional Responsibilities of the T & D Department

Operations & Maintenance Division

• Optimization of Transformer utilization island-wide.
• Refurbishing of distribution network island-wide.
• To collect, analyze and store transformer load and voltage readings.
• Phase balancing on distribution network.
• Effective vegetation management.
• Removal of low voltage problem island-wide.
• Removal of double poles and the straightening of leaning poles.
• Relocation of inaccessible lines.

Consumer Services Division

• In conjunction with the Planning Department prepare and implement inspection standards.
• Changing of service lines island-wide.
• Replacement of all black meters.

Emergency Service Operations Division

• Maintenance of streetlights.
• Effective response to emergency calls.
• Logging and analysing of fault information.