Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) says it has achieved substantial annual cost savings through the completion of a new 11 kV switching station in 2008. The station helped further enhance the security of the power supply to Potline 3 and resolved various complex problems linked to switching it, Alba said.

“Alba’s power station faced increased cost of power generation and reduction in power security when it had to reconfigure the power delivery to Potline 3. This had to be done following the forced outages of two of the transformers installed for Potline 3 under the Line 5 expansion project.
“The decision to install a new 11 kV switching station proved to be a very effective solution after analysing the switching waveforms recorded. With this implementation, the power supply to Potline 3 does not depend on Power Station 2 as was the case earlier.”
Power projects manager Jamal Alaali said: “Skillful admini- stration of the contract with closer monitoring of the contractor’s procurement and installation costs enabled us to accomplish the task well below the budget.”
Alba has its own dedicated power plant comprising four eco-friendly power stations with a total generating capacity of 2,200 MW.