Member Article

Manufacturer celebrates completion of £8m National Grid project

A Midlands manufacturer is celebrating the completion of its biggest ever single contract, which saw it develop an innovative steel access cover to help protect copper electricity cables.

Fabweld Steel Products designed and manufactured the vented lid covers for an £8 million National Grid project to overhaul the outdated Pyle electricity substation in south Wales.

The Telford company, a European leader in the design and manufacture of access covers, recently finished on site with the project taking around six months to complete.

Managing director Richard Hilton said: “We were involved in the project from the early stages and came up with a design for an access cover which would help ventilate the concrete troughs where the German-manufactured cables are laid at Pyle.

“Representatives from National Grid came to our head office and workshop at Madeley and we showed them how our design, created using our laser cutting equipment, would work to protect the cables.

“The original plan would have been at vast tooling expense, but our innovation has enabled us to be competitive without losing quality of either design or workmanship. We’re delighted we could offer this solution for such a prestigious project.

FSP, which manufactures its products in Madeley, is now exploring a range of applications for its vented access cover design.

Sales manager at FSP, John Tudor, said the company had to meet exacting standards to ensure compliance with this major project.

“Our worksmanship is always to the highest standards, as are our operating practices and procedures, so we were confident we would meet the rigorous standards which needed to be met to be involved in the delivery of this project.

“In total, we provided around 800 steel panels, with a vented design, to the Pyle project, totalling around 400 metres in total. And as steel fabricators, we’re especially delighted to be involved as this sub-station provides all of the power to the Port Talbot steel works nearby.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Fabweld Steel Products .