Work has been completed at Lancashire’s first net-zero substation.

The multimillion-pound project which is powering the ongoing development of Samlesbury Enterprise Zone was carried out by engineers from Electricity North West.

They finished the final electricity connections at the Sir Frederick Page Way substation earlier this month.

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The £7.5m project has seen a new 33,000-volt net zero substation installed to power the zone and the substation itself uses power from 91 solar panels to self-sufficiently run the electrical switchgear and lighting.

Around 10km of new underground cables have also been installed to almost double the network capacity and power the Samlesbury area.

Ian Lillis, Electricity North West’s project manager for the Samlesbury Enterprise Zone project said: “We’re delighted to have completed work at Samlesbury Enterprise Zone. It has been a significant technical engineering project which has involved a lot of coordination with different authorities ensuring we always kept disruption to a minimum.

“The new substation will ensure the network has enough capacity to meet local demand and will guarantee that the major new facilities already being built will have the power they need to drive clean growth.”

The Samlesbury Enterprise Zone is a major employment site, with the potential to deliver over 1.5m sq ft of commercial floorspace, generating around 2,500 jobs and investment value of well over £200m.

The county council is investing in and successfully delivering the Enterprise Zone working in partnership with the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership, BAE Systems, Electricity North West, and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre for the North West.

County Councillor Phillippa Williamson, leader of Lancashire County Council said: “Our redevelopment of Samlesbury Enterprise Zone is a once in a generation opportunity to deliver a truly world-class, leading-edge collaborative environment, with the aim of bringing thousands of jobs to Lancashire, whilst ensuring we deliver a high-quality and sustainable site.

“We’re proud that we’ve been working with Electricity North West to deliver this substation, which is the first of its kind in Lancashire, as part of our planned development of this site.

“We are already well underway with our complementary programmes which include planting thousands of trees and re-using material from the old runway on our counties roads, and this new substation adds to the sustainability of our redevelopment.”

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