Restoration of the PADU Power Station located in Trafalgar is expected to be completed by mid October this year.
Chief Operations Officer of Dominica Electricity Services Limited (DOMLEC), Ian Ramrattan made the announcement during a media tour of the PADU Power Station held in Trafalgar on Tuesday.
Members of the media received a firsthand view of the extensive ongoing restoration works and pipelines to the station.
“Things are in place, behind the scenes we have the infrastructure, we have the pipelines, the other pipelines you are not seeing here right now are being stored in our storage areas, so hopefully things will be on track by mid-October,” he said.
The PADU power station was severely devastated during the passage of Hurricane Maria in 2017.
According to him, the focus will be on four main areas. The turbine house which houses the generator, the Ravine Fond bridge rebuild, the penstock rehabilitation (construction of new pipe support), and diversion which will total over EC$8 Million.
He continued, “The first three sections are expected to be completed by mid-October this year and with that we are able to get back 70% to 80% of the capacity at PADU.”
Ramrattan explained that the last component, the diversion, is not absolutely necessary for the PADU station to be recommissioned.
“We expect while things are happening right now to get the diversion back on track,” he explained. “We are still in the middle of contract negotiations with the preferred supplier and we expect those works to take eight to nine months from now, simply because a lot of the work will be in the river itself and if there is rain you cannot do much work.”
Furthermore, he indicated that the PADU turbine house phase has a number of sub-components in it, “the building of the turbine house itself, that cost us just over $1 million to restore the turbine house.”
“We purchased over $2 million worth of equipment that were damaged and destroyed during Hurricane Maria,” Ramrattan revealed.
He mentioned also that DOMLEC will put together a commissioning team in anticipation of the date expected for the completion.
Meanwhile, Mechanical Engineer at DOMLEC, Moses Archibald Jr. said restoration works are being done in a more resilient way: a bigger, better, more resilient turbine house and a more resilient bridge system to avoid being affected by flooding.
“PADU Penstock rehabilitation and what you see ongoing right now is the construction of new pipe support,” he stated. “This area was totally washed away by Hurricane Maria and the construction going on now is more resilient, the pipe supports are stronger, reinforced concrete and we have more robust pipe clamps and so on.”
Archibald noted that the coplas sent to the pipes are more robust and depths of the pipe supports are also deeper into the soil.
He said DOMLEC encountered a few hiccups because of very large boulders which was unforeseen because of the landslides.
“That kind of slowed down the project, but we are getting there,” Archibald stated.
He reported that installation of the pipes will commence later this week.
“This pipeline was designed for flow of 1.3 cubic meters per second,” he revealed.
Archibald added, “We are better prepared than before. We have done all that we can to improve the resilience infrastructure.”
Can you believe this hype?
Please don’t hold your breath for this project to be completed by October.
Not a chance in hell.
Seriously, are you telling me, our Government purchased Domlec without due diligence? I mean Domlec is willfully plucking the eyes of Dominicans.
People have to make decisions, to turn of everything, unplugged their fridges, so they can afford to buy bread, since they can’t afford to buy a quarter bag of flour anymore. That’s hard pills to swallow. The generator should have been repaired. Period. It mattered, and the Government did not put pressure on Domlec to get it done. That’s concerning.
Why would you want to buy a quarter bag of imported flour, most likely from Ukraine or Australia when you can cut your DEPENDENCE and use breadfruit, tania, dasheen or cassava that have superior flavor?
The nerve of you telling the man what he should eat….smmfh! Just now allu will tell people where and when to shower in Dca after Labour daykarlay the country…
You hypocrite,you should have said the Prime Minister built Dominica before we built a mansion for him.But again you and yours left Dominica immediately after it was destroyed by hurrican Maria.I paid $50.00 less last month than I did for the month before.LIAR.You supported the blue traitor,when he told the UN do not help Dominica,because Skerrit was committing crimes against.
5 years that lot needs to restore a turbine house. Only recently an entire dam with 10 turbines was constructed in Africa in less than 3 years. I guess just another world beating project in DA waiting for completion.
Unfortunately we have several more of those world beating but unfinished projects in Dominica. To name but a few: coffee factory, abattoir, Moroccan hotel, Ainchi hotel, geothermal, new airport, Hampstead bridge… Mind you some of them will be resurrected in time for next election only to disappear again for another 5 years. Only Skerrit could survive this world beating incompetence and ongoing lying.
Seriously Dominicans, we build a mansion for the President and a mansion for the Prime Minister before rebuilding and fixing our electricity power generation since 2017? That is what having your priorities all wrong means! Now, electricity costs sky high because of the high global costs of diesel. We could all have been payiung less for electricity if we had prioritised this rebuild of our power generation station. But we love our PM and rather build his mansion and pay his rent and expenses before we build Dominica! Dominicans do you all see what is wrong with us, our Government, and our priorities? This love of political party before country will kill us all.
They don’t care, imo all government buildings should have solar power and pass on the excess power generated or the savings to the customers
Since you mentioned political parties, how did we get here? The contract that delivered the co to Domlec was one of the worse written contracts. You all wrote it and neglected to require upkeep and maintenance of hydro, nor adding other sources like solar, so they just kept adding and maintaining big old diesel engines. They made sure you all removed the ability for citizens to generate their own solar and wind or go to jail. This here is a positive step in the right direction. I say this and I’m not even a big fan of this current party. Politics aside.