ABB has won an order worth $63 million from the Saudi Electricity Co. (SEC), Saudi Arabia’s national power transmission utility, to upgrade 15 substations in the country's Eastern and Central provinces.

The substations are spread over an area of about 1,000 km, and cover a range of voltage levels from 13.8 kV to 230 kV. The project is scheduled for completion in 2011.

“This upgrade will help distribute more power to meet increasing industrial and residential electricity demand in the region. It will also strengthen the transmission and distribution network and enhance its efficiency,” said Peter Leupp, head of ABB's Power Systems division.

ABB will provide a turnkey solution including design, engineering, supply, installation, testing and commissioning. The products to be supplied include power transformers, medium voltage switchgear, protection and control equipment, as well as SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) solutions to enable better power monitoring and control.

Substations are key installations in the transmission and distribution grid that facilitate the transformation of voltage levels and the distribution of electrical power. ABB has an installed base of around 10,000 substations worldwide, across a range of voltage levels up to 800 kV.