Venezuela

The Venezuelan state-owned electricity utility Enelven has awarded a $28 million contract to ABB for the installation of systems which will increase the capacity of existing overhead transmission lines serving the petroleum and petrochemical centre of Maraciabo by 20 per cent.

The project will involve flexible ac transmission systems (FACTS), a group of technologies for improving ac power transmission, and will, ABB claims, save Enelven's investing in additional transmission capacity. Under the terms of the turnkey contract ABB will design, build and install five series compensation stations, one for each of five existing 400 kV transmission lines. The project is due to be completed in 15 months. This is expected to make an additional 300 MW of transmission capacity available, at 20 per cent of the cost of new capacity.