Overhead cables removed ahead of import expo

Overhead cables on eight roads near the venue for the upcoming import expo in Qingpu District have been removed, State Grid Shanghai said on Wednesday.

A total of 51 kilometers of cables and 578 street poles were removed in the past six months, it said.

Removing the cables involved a series of designs from pipeline routing to site selection of transformer substations. Complicated communication, water and gas pipelines buried underground around the National Exhibition and Convention Center made the project even more difficult. The fact that Metro Line 17 runs under Songze Avenue, one of the eight roads, also added difficulties for the city’s power company.

It took a month to design the route of pipelines to make sure they wouldn’t interfere with other services. 

In order to minimize its impact on the traffic, work was often carried out at night. On Huqingping Expressway, workers would start at 11pm and restore traffic before 5am the next day.

The company said power supplies around the center would be more stable in future as cables buried underground would no longer be susceptible to external forces such as thunder and lightning.