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Thursday July 31st 2003

$1.9M PROJECT TO UPGRADE OLDER RIPPLE CONTROL INJECTION SYSTEM

Northpower has begun a $1.9M project to upgrade its older ripple control injection system. Northpower has used "ripple control systems" for the last 50 years to switch controllable load, such as water heaters, from peak load times to non peak load times. This has avoided the need to invest in distribution, transmission and even generation assets to supply the load.

Northpower has committed $1.9M to replace the older ripple systems on the network with the latest technology, to ensure that the utilization of the network can continue to be optimized.

To date, Northpower has operated a mixture of older electric motor ripple systems and more modern electronic ripple systems. While the older motor systems could continue to be operated for some years, the upgrade will significantly reduce the maintenance costs as two new 33kV modern electronic ripple systems will replace eight old motor 11kV ripple systems. In addition upgrading the entire ripple system to a common modern system eliminates many of the technical and operational constraints of our Network. This means ripple blocking devices on farm and industrial motors will no longer be required, reducing the cost for customers installing new motors.

Investigation and planning for this project began about 12 months ago. The modern ripple systems were ordered in December 2002, and arrived four weeks ago. Some construction work such as preparing foundations and cable laying began prior to the equipment delivery. In addition a number of receivers on customers switch boards were able to be changed prior to the new modern ripple systems being operational. However most of the receivers can only be changed or reprogrammed once the new systems are operational. There will be a period where both the old and the new systems are operated together while the receivers are being changed or reprogrammed. This phase of the project is expected to take 12 months and involves more than 11,000 receivers being changed in switch boards around the district.

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