PPL – Underground Project – 2011

Matrix NAC completed the Harrisburg/Walnut 138/69kv underground project for Pennsylvania Power and Light Electric Utilities Corporation (PPL). The scope of work consisted of pulling two new circuits from the Walnut substation to the Harrisburg substation through four underground vaults. A total of 30,000' of cable on 20 reels (25,000 lbs. each) were pulled from the Walnut substation under the city sidewalks to the Myers poles and back underground to the Harrisburg substation.

The Matrix NAC team worked very closely with PP&L, coordinating the sequence of cable pulls and substation outages. Once the terminators and splices were complete, the cables were tested to PP&L’s specification.

Key members of the crew worked safely and productively through varying weather conditions swabbing the conduits, moving the reels, setting up the confined space equipment for the vault work, rigging the pulling equipment and assisting the splicers in an effort to meet PP&L’s transmission outages.

During the Harrisburg outages, a total of twelve 600v disconnect switches and six existing surge arrestors were removed and a total of twelve new 1200 amp hook switches and six 69kv surge arrestors were installed along with the new cable terminators.

During the Walnut outages, the 69kv terminators were removed and the new terminators were installed with modifications.

The PP&L warehouse and construction division along with Matrix NAC’s crew worked as a team, and the project was completed without incident and ahead of schedule.