America's North Shore Journal

Newly installed elec­tri­cal power equip­ment in Fal­lu­jah Iraq

A 132-kilovolt sub­sta­tion in Fal­lu­jah, pro­jected for com­ple­tion in Octo­ber, will result in more con­sis­tent and sta­ble elec­tric­ity for Fal­lu­jah residents.

The $14.8 mil­lion project is being man­aged by the Gulf Region Divi­sion, U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers in Iraq, and funded by the Iraqi Relief and Recon­struc­tion Fund.

The sub­sta­tion was dam­aged in a fire caused by cir­cuit breaker fail­ure in Jan. 2005, and was iden­ti­fied by the Division’s Gulf Region Dis­trict as a sig­nif­i­cant capacity-building project for Fallujah.

Maj. Joseph Geary, the offi­cer in charge of the District’s res­i­dent office in Fal­lu­jah, praised the team for work­ing stead­fastly on the project and over­com­ing var­i­ous issues, includ­ing get­ting the equip­ment on site in good condition.

For exam­ple, when a trans­former arrived dam­aged, secu­rity con­cerns hin­dered its deliv­ery to the repair facil­ity in another province. GRD offi­cials and the con­trac­tor worked together to nego­ti­ate the trans­port and repair of the crit­i­cal com­po­nent. Now, in coor­di­na­tion with Iraqi secu­rity forces, the project is pro­gress­ing along.

“It’s a great story where the con­trac­tor, GRD and the Deputy Gen­eral from the Iraqi Min­istry of Elec­tric­ity all worked together to move this project closer to the fin­ish line,” said Geary.

The trans­former is at the fac­tory for repair and is expected to be ready in approx­i­mately 60 days. In the mean­time, the con­trac­tor is con­tin­u­ing to work on the switch­ing equip­ment and other inter­nal components.

When the 132-kilovolt sub­sta­tion is com­plete, the Fal­lu­jah Min­is­ter of Elec­tric­ity will have more lat­i­tude in man­ag­ing the power grid as it relates to allo­cat­ing power from area to area.

Improve­ments at the Fal­lu­jah sub­sta­tion will also pro­vide expan­sion capac­ity with the addi­tion of another bay and main transformer.

Dur­ing its peak con­struc­tion sea­son, con­struc­tion of the Fal­lu­jah sub­sta­tion employed
40 Iraqi workers.

The Gulf Region Divi­sion, U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers in Iraq has com­pleted thou­sands of recon­struc­tion projects in part­ner­ship with the U.S. gov­ern­ment and the gov­ern­ment of Iraq. Since 2004, GRD has com­pleted 4,626 projects through­out Iraq val­ued at more than $7.2 bil­lion, and has 287 projects ongoing.

MNF-I
By Ronald A. Reeves
Gulf Region District