ENERGEX has officially commissioned an $8.3 million upgrade to the Cades County power network on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. More than 12,000 local homes and businesses are benefiting from the recently completed upgrade which included doubling the capacity of the Cades County substation with new transformers and new underground cables to the eastern side of the Pacific Highway.

The upgrade is just one of around $80 million worth of recently completed or current ENERGEX projects on the Gold Coast and part of $440 million spent by ENERGEX in the South Coast region over the past four years to keep pace with unprecedented population growth and electricity demand.

Active major ENERGEX projects on the Gold Coast include:

Recently completed

• Cades County new transformers and underground cable - $8.3 million
• Staplyton new substation - $5.5 million
• Currumbin new underground cables - $3 million
• Coomera substation transformer - $2.3 million
• Burleigh Heads new underground cable - $2 million

Underway

•  Merrimac new substation - $20 million
• Southport substation upgrade - $10.4 million
• Iimpama to Coomera new underground and overhead project $9.6 million
• Mudgeeraba substation - $8.6 million
• Gaven new substation - $6 million
•  Hollywell new underground cables - $2.5 million

More than 13,000 additional people chose the Gold Coast as their home between 2007 and 2008 and according to ENERGEX such large population booms require equally large investment in the electricity infrastructure.

Not all that long ago ENERGEX used to carry out improvements on the Gold Coast worth hundreds of thousands. But now with the population surge and increased domestic power usage, network upgrades in the region are in the vicinity of tens of millions to keep in step with growth.