Cambodia Utility Infrastructure & Digitalisation: Koh Kong Substation Project Selected as Finalist at Bentley YII 2021

• 28 December 2021
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The Koh Kong 230/22-kV Substation of Pestech International Berhad has been selected as one of the finalists of the Bentley System’s 2021 Going Digital Awards in Infrastructure, reflecting another small step of Cambodia’s utility sector toward digitalization.

Being one among 57 finalists selected from nearly 300 nominations across 45 countries is an achievement not only for Pestech but also for Cambodia, said Afiq Rosli, Pestech’s Lead Engineer for Bentley Development Program, citing that the usage of engineering software in Cambodia for infrastructure projects is slowly gaining popularity.

Located along the border of Thailand and Cambodia, the 230-kV Koh Kong substation provides essential power to 11 rural villages, strengthening the reliability of Cambodia’s grid. The project costs US$2 million with a 38-month project duration.

“Given site constraints along with a tight timeline and budget, Pestech found out that manual substation design methods were time-consuming and error-prone. So, we decided to integrate intelligent modeling technology,” said Mr Afig.

Pestech selected OpenUtilities and OpenBuildings to model the entire substation, including equipment and buildings, addressing its entire lifecycle. ProjectWise also provided a collaborative design platform.

“With the aforementioned software, we could automatically extract materials and construction deliverables, eliminating manual errors and increasing design quality. Maximizing design automation through digital modeling also accelerated design time by 50%, while coordinated design and clash detection reduced design changes by 60%,” said Mr Afig.

“Bentley’s integrated smart technology solution allows utilities to keep pace with refurbishment requirements and reduce regulatory compliance risks,” he added.

The Koh Kong Substation is not the first project in Cambodia selected in the Bentley annual competition. In 2017, a 230-kilovolt substation and transmission system in Kratié and Kampong Cham was also the winner of YII 2017.

In that project, Pestech replaced the manual design process of past projects with Bentley Substation, which provided a platform for integrated electrical and physical design. (Read more_more_more)

 

• Technology and Engineering