MULTI-national power firm ABB has won a £9m contract to build NEDL's new substation on Teesside.

The distribution arm of Northern Electric's business has commissioned a replacement 132kV interconnector to replace an existing structure.

The project will use gas insulated (GIS) switchgear housed in an indoor building which will occupy about a quarter of the space needed to house the existing substation.

Norton substation, which interconnects the National Grid and NEDL's distribution network, supplies power to Teesside and surrounding areas.

The original plan was to construct a new outdoor substation alongside the present unit but new land would have had to be bought.

ABB, which operates in more than 100 countries and employs 146,000 staff, came up with the idea of freeing up land by installing a compact ELK-04 GIS switchgear and decommissioning the existing substation.