A power upgrade has boosted the resilience of electricity supplies for thousands of homes and businesses across Eastbourne.
Engineers have installed the last of four new, remotely controlled switches to speed up reconnection of electricity supplies in the occasional event of a power cut.
The final stage of the £560,000 investment was carried out recently, completing the upgrade at the electricity substation which started last year.
Richard Coates, project manager at UK Power Networks, says: “The switches have been changed from manual to remote control. This means we can operate the switches remotely from our control centre in the event of a fault on the system, restoring supplies quicker and minimising the impact.
“The last 18 months have been challenging for everyone, during COVID-19, but the team was fantastic and supported each other throughout the project. The work was completed without having any noticeable impact on the local community and will have long-lasting network reliability benefits for the town.”
A team of experts worked on the upgrade including civil engineers, commissioning engineers, electrical fitters and electrical switching engineers.
The Eastbourne project is one of several electricity network improvements taking place across the South East as part of a £600 million network investment this year to maintain reliable electricity supplies.