8Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA) and SMRT commenced the renewal works on North-South and East-West Lines’ power supply system, scheduled to be completed in 2020.
About 1,300 km of power cables, 250 km of fibre optic cables located along the NSEWL’s tracks, 206 power transformers, 172 switchboards and equipment in 171 sub-stations will be replaced.
Enhancement works will also be carried out concurrently to improve the system’s resilience to enable better prediction of faults, thereby shortening recovery time-frames during a disruption
To enhance SMRT’s predictive maintenance regime, a condition monitoring system will be implemented for the NSEWL. The system will monitor the health of the power supply equipment and generate trend reports. Real-time information such as voltage and temperature will be transmitted to the SMRT’s operations control centre, so that irregularities can be picked up early, enabling SMRT to carry out further investigations and rectification works where necessary.
The current 64P touch voltage protection system will also be replaced with Voltage Limiting Devices (VLD). Traditionally, the 64P system halts operations when the touch voltage of the railway is elevated, triggering safety mechanisms to kick in. With the installation of the new VLD, the touch voltage will be mitigated without affecting rail operations. The NSEWL’s high voltage network will also be reconfigured to ensure that no single point of failure will disrupt the entire rail network.
The replacement of wooden sleepers and the third rail, on North-South line were completed in December 2016 and September 2017, on East-West line. The transition of the NSEWL to the new Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) signalling system is progressing well.
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