GEA plans grid automation to bolster resilience 

The Gibraltar Electricity Authority plans to automate key parts of the electricity distribution network to reduce the extent and duration of power cuts and lessen reliance on engineers attending substations as a significant proportion of its workforce approaches retirement. 

The Minister for Health, Care and Business, Gemma Arias-Vasquez, told Parliament on Friday that the improvements should enable unaffected sections of the network to regain power within 10 minutes following a fault. 

She was responding to GSD MP Craig Sacarello, who asked about plans to upgrade Gibraltar’s electricity grid, including priorities, delivery timescales and costs. 

Mrs Arias-Vasquez said the GEA would progressively connect all critical substations to a central monitoring and control system, known as SCADA, using fibre communications where practical and secure mobile communications elsewhere. 

The connections would give the power station control room real-time information about substations and allow remote switching, automated restoration of supply and rapid adjustments to electricity demand when problems affect generation. 

“This also reduces reliance on physical intervention by GEA's engineering workforce at substations at a time when a significant proportion of that workforce is approaching retirement, making automation a further contributor to long-term resilience, not only a response time improvement,” she said. 

The aim is to reduce the need for engineers and technicians to travel to substations to conduct initial tests, locate faults and operate switches manually. 

Mrs Arias-Vasquez said the combination of communications, remote switching and automatic restoration should allow healthy sections of the network to be restored rapidly within 10 minutes of a fault. 

An independent technical assurance review completed in July had confirmed immediate priorities for the distribution network. 

These included completing commissioning of the intelligent load shedding system, coordinating protection systems across the network and incorporating the existing battery storage system into resilience planning. 

The review also identified earthing and current transformer issues at the Waterport substation requiring remedial work. 

Mrs Arias-Vasquez said future investment would prioritise infrastructure whose failure posed the greatest risk to continuity of supply, using assessments of reliability, safety, capacity and condition rather than principally the age of equipment. 

She outlined a phased programme spanning 36 months, covering initial safety and asset management work, strengthening network protection, improving automation and transferring the resulting capability into the GEA. 

Negotiations were underway to secure dedicated technical expertise to deliver the programme and train the future GEA workforce, including apprenticeships and general support. 

Mr Sacarello welcomed the detail but pressed for a costed programme, firm milestones and identification of the person responsible for delivery. 

Mrs Arias-Vasquez said costs and milestones were still being negotiated and would be announced once settled. 

She also offered to share the technical report privately with Mr Sacarello but said she did not wish to make it public “for obvious reasons”.