ENERGEX and the Ipswich City Council will collectively spend $700,000 to place parts of Rosewood’s overhead electricity network underground. The initiative is part of ENERGEX’s Community Powerline Enhancement Program (CPEP) in which South East Queensland councils and ENERGEX jointly fund the undergrounding of existing overhead electricity networks.

The program’s main focus is undergrounding or bundling existing powerlines in sensitive locations such as major street shopping precincts, sensitive environmental and heritage areas, locations with significant vegetation, high pedestrian or vehicular areas, and in communities abutting bays, rivers and coastlines. In Rosewood, more than 300 m of overhead powerlines on will be replaced with underground cables. Work is planned to commence in April 2012.

After the underground cables are installed and operational, ENERGEX will remove the existing overhead powerlines and poles. Weather permitting, the works are expected to be completed by August 2012.

This will be the second CPEP project in Ipswich city this year with parts of another Ipswich overhead network placed underground recently.

The CPEP is the first of five segments in a planned $100 million, five-year program aimed at reducing the visual impact of existing overhead powerlines. Among the other five programs is a blackspots program which will target electricity poles and powerlines consistently damaged during traffic accidents.