Our project management consultancy team are proud to be supporting BMD Group (BMD) to deliver HV network supply to the new home of the Spirit of Tasmania, covering 12 hectares at Corio Quay, Geelong.
We offer electrical engineering and project management services to complex infrastructure projects like this, as a specialty team alongside our major projects, residential and I&C PM work.
Find out more about the project here.
Maintaining employee engagement through covid lockdowns and restrictions has meant doing all we can to keep our team supported with regular, meaningful communication, open discussion and flexible work arrangements. It’s awesome to see our recent engagement survey shows it remains at a very high level (89%), with 91% responding that working at Powerplant inspires them to do their best every day. Powerplant’s commitment to safety and to supporting a sustainable energy future also rated highly.
Thank you to our team for their resilience, productivity, customer focus and commitment to Powerplant.
Yeshaswini SreeHarReddy recently joined our graduate program and shares a bit about herself, including what drew her to the industry, and her experience at Powerplant so far.
How did your training/previous roles lead you to working at Powerplant?
For as long as I remember, I have always been fascinated by electricity – from a little resistor to titan transformers. As an undergrad student, I was initiated into the fundamentals of electrical engineering. At Monash University, I gravitated towards Smart Grids and integration of renewables with conventional grids. All these experiences laid the foundation for my start as a graduate Electrical Engineer at Powerplant.
What do you like best about your job?
We take a solution-oriented approach to meet current market needs within the purview of distribution business regulations. Contributing to this through my technical design, analysis and drafting has given me confidence in my abilities. Consequently, my creativity and decision-making capacity have been employed to their full potential. A positive organisational culture is key to feeling motivated and inspired at work. I love how my manager, Gianni Castellani, pushes me to endeavour on projects that I thought were beyond my abilities, with respect to my age and knowledge. It is also very empowering to work with fellow women engineers in leadership roles. I am very proud to be part of the conception of our ‘Women in Engineering’ committee and ‘Green Power Working Group’ under the guidance of Kayla George.
What are the values that drive you?
Compassion, reliability, and responsibility are the values that drive me. Sustainable development and green energy incorporation into our daily lives is a dream that inspires me to work harder. I want to contribute to the world and leave it a better place.
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?
Some days, I enjoy watching a good movie and ordering in. I often experiment with new cooking techniques and learn about world cuisine along the way. Otherwise, I enjoy being outdoors and socialising. Going out for a cup of coffee or a snack with friends.
If you could visit any place in the world right now where would you go?
It must be Scandinavia! I would like front row seats to the northern lights.
We are increasingly receiving requests for information about design and installation of electric vehicle (EV) charging points from local councils. Having recently installed EV sites in several spots around regional Victoria, we have good knowledge of the products available to best suit different locations.
We can design and construct the charging point of supply and electrical site layout, including cable, conduit, transformer and charging station locations, determine appropriate circuit protection and also negotiate supply capacity with the electrical authority.
If your council is interested in investigating EV charging options for your municipality, please get in touch. We are happy to hold initial discussions anytime.
Please join us in welcoming Kayla George, our new Business Development Manager, to the Powerplant team. This is a key appointment for us and with extensive experience in energy utilities, metering, renewable energy and embedded networks we know Kayla will add great value to customers across all areas of our business.
She recently wrapped up 11+ years working with Select Solutions and Mondo, and brings a long list of achievements including delivery of several large solar generation projects and establishing Select Solutions embedded networks and sub-metering service. Outside of work she is a long-time volunteer with the CFA in her local area, spending many hours on the fire truck.
She has been looking forward to starting with us and the feeling is mutual! Welcome Kayla.
We are close to delivering extensive electrical relocations, lighting and new electrical assets for stages 1, 2 & 3 of Smiths Lane, an innovative Mirvac development in Clyde North.
A complex design with multiple separate projects running concurrently, several constructors onsite, and tight timeframes with multiple stages relying on road relocations, required a rigorous approach. Our PMs were regularly onsite, detailed preconstruction meetings were held with the constructors and Mirvac, and our detailing capabilities were utilised to compare actual with as-builts. Pre-audits for electrical and NBN were also key to ensuring minimal non compliances and achieving compliance to timeframe.
To date, the relocation of Thompsons Road has been completed, along with undergrounding/overhead removal for Smiths Lane, lighting, including signalised intersection, has been installed along with all telco assets.
Special mention to contractors on the project, UCS and Prasinus, who worked safely through difficult weather conditions and a tight timeframe to deliver the OH and undergrounding works.
These Covid times have tested all of us in ways we couldn’t have imagined, and helping each other through the ups and downs has been a focus for the Powerplant team. With the support of Amanda Purnell from Springfox, we took part in a series of high impact, practical learning sessions designed to measure and assess our individual resilience and teach us how to build on areas where we can be better.
Of great value to us was the resilience diagnostic report which gave each team member a point-in-time resilience score along with practical suggestions of ways to try and build resilience. Following three resilience sessions the diagnostic report will be repeated and next steps planned.
The sessions so far have been a great way for us to share our concerns, recognise we are all facing challenges and get some practical support.
Some questions we had were:
How to be focused during working from home and how to know when you should switch off/take a break?
Where does Powerplant team sit based on this assessment comparing to other businesses in the same industry, what are our strengths and weaknesses?
Tips to stop worrying about stuff we cannot control?
Suggestions for how we can create a separation between work and life after hours especially now as we work from home.
Any ideas on getting better night sleep?
Our strong relationships with Powercor along with innovative thinking by our project managers helped us deliver a huge 26 Statements of Compliance for Lendlease’s Atherstone development in 2019.
Powerplant’s Major Development Management services were instrumental in achieving these SOC’s as the majority of the stages were constructed concurrently. Regular strategic meetings with Powercor were held to ensure they were engaged and informed on stage progress. As always, mitigating risk to the client’s works schedule was the focus of our PM approach and we were able to implement some innovative strategies with our contractors to deliver compliance on time. Powerplant has now implemented these and other outcomes from our URD Customer Improvement Program into our standard business process for the benefit of all customers.
The 481-hectare Atherstone Estate development 40km west of the Melbourne CBD has space for 4,500 homes and will house a population of 15,000, serviced by a new train station and retail and commercial areas.
We have successfully completed the first stage of a 66kV underground design for Major Road Projects Victoria’s M80 upgrade works. The complex design requires a staged approach due to existing site conditions and to ensure construction is practical and feasible. We have also been engaged for project management through the head constructor CPB.
The M80 Ring Road upgrade will widen and realign the freeway, widen on and off ramps and install a new smart freeway management system along 38km of road from Laverton North to Greensborough.
Our project management capability is growing – we now have 15 PMs accredited with Victorian distribution networks and 13 currently completing AIPM competency training. We also have project managers supporting Victorian Utilities in an embedded capacity.
Our leadership team includes several accredited project managers. General managers Jason Southby (Delivery) and Jean Gaied (Projects) are both AIPM accredited (Program Director), with extensive experience managing complex projects throughout their careers. Their PM experience includes AMI rollout, defence force projects and new technology.
We offer project management contracting services for any project – URD, lighting, asset relocation and customer networks – and can provide a solution where resourcing limitations, capacity or time constraints are hampering delivery of your project.