Lighting up Marina Bay

Like arteries and veins that keep the body alive with a constant flow of blood, close to 26,000km of cables, more than 3,240km of gas pipelines and a 3,000-strong team of people work around the clock to keep Singapore's lights on and air cool. 

When Mr Thiam Chiong Seng drives along the East Coast Parkway and past the Marina Bay area, it is rarely without a smile on his face.

The 47-year-old engineer is the director of network development at Singapore Power (SP), where he has worked for 16 years doing high-voltage equipment installations, including at the Marina South substation.

That means keeping the lights on in iconic buildings that include Marina Bay Sands, the Marina Bay Financial Centre and Gardens by the Bay.

"With Marina Bay, I know that we are literally powering it. You can see and feel the impact," he said. "That's why it's very exciting being in the energy business. You're not dealing with tiny electronics. What we build is so huge so you feel a real sense of satisfaction when you see a job completed."

SP's network development engineers develop and build the infrastructure that ensures continuous and reliable power supply to households, as well as industrial and commercial buildings. This includes forging the fit between network demand and supply, conducting simulations and doing tests and checks on equipment before it is used.

"We don't want a situation in which we turn the equipment on and you suddenly see 'fireworks'. We have our biggest fireworks display on National Day and we'd like to keep it that way," Mr

Thiam said with a laugh.

What makes the Marina South substation unique is that it is Singapore's first substation that can receive bulk energy transmissions at 230 kilovolts (kV) from the power generation companies and then convert it to 22kV, which is the voltage at which some consumers can use it.

Usually, power has to be converted to 66kV before being reconverted to 22kV or lower voltages, but new equipment allows it to bypass that intermediate stage. That means saving on space and equipment cost.

The current capacity of the substation is 300 megavolt amperes (MVA) - meaning it can power up an area up to twice the size of Ang Mo Kio Town.

"But we have also future-proofed it so it can deal with the area's expansion," he explained, adding that the substation is capable of servicing the area's needs for at least the next decade.

The substation also has three sets of 230kV cables to create a situation of "double redundancy", so even if one set is knocked out, the other two function as back-up, keeping the lights on.

Mr Thiam got involved in the Marina South project in 2000, when his team helped outline the technical requirements for transmitting power through South-east Asia's first Common Services Tunnel, which was being built by the Urban Redevelopment Authority at the time.

Those tunnels, which sit between 2.5m and 20m underground, deliver everything from electricity to chilled water and telecommunication cables.

"The Government realised the CBD (Central Business District) had to be expanded, and we were able to support them in the development," said Mr Thiam, who oversees a department of 18, including six engineers.

Mr Thiam, who studied electrical and electronic engineering at Nanyang Technological University, started out in an industrial air-conditioning company before moving to an SP subcontractor doing maintenance work on 230kV transformers. He was so impressed with Singapore Power that he ended up applying for a job. He has not looked back since.

What he is especially proud of is that other countries look to Singapore for the types and technical specifications of equipment used and even quality control processes. But communicating this information can be harder than one can imagine.

"In China, it would be rude to speak English, but try finding the Chinese word for cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) or polypropylene laminated paper (PPLP). Chinese is not our native language for technical terms," he exclaimed with a laugh, referring to the types of insulation materials used in cables.

His overseas exposure has also been eye-opening, not least because of the much higher tolerance level other countries have for disruptive electrical and road works.

"In China and India, they understand that electrical cabling is for the good of the country. Here? We have to work at night or traffic would be obstructed, and we can work only a limited number of hours at night because residents complain about the noise," he said, shaking his head.

During the Marina South substation project, for instance, one 900m stretch of road between Anson Road and Cecil Street took almost two years to complete because work could be done only between 8pm and 4am and the noisier work had to be finished by 10pm.

"In other countries, they would just block off the road and finish it up in just months."

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