CHRISALSTON BELLE was appointed the general manager of the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) on January 1.
Belle, an electrical engineer who holds a bachelor's degree from UWI, replaces Curvis Francois who retired in November.
In a news release on January 7, T&TEC said he was confirmed as an engineer in 1994, having graduated from T&TEC’s two-year engineer-in-training programme.
It said, "During his 32-year career, Belle held senior positions in the transmission and distribution divisions and was last responsible for T&TEC’s technical division, having been appointed as chief technical officer (CTO) in 2020."
Belle, the release said, directed the operations of all distribution areas, public lighting, transmission development and engineering services, transmission maintenance, system control and generation interface, system planning and research, civil engineering and facilities management, distribution planning and support, protection and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), communications and the Cove Power Station.
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"During his tenure as CTO, he applied contemporary project management principles to projects, in particular the completion and commissioning of the Union/Gandhi 220kV circuit in April 2023. This 22km-long backup circuit takes electricity from the country's largest and most efficient electricity generating company, Trinidad Generation Unlimited (TGU) in La Brea, to the Gandhi Substation, where it is transmitted to the rest of the country.
"As CTO, Belle introduced technological solutions such as the loop scheme model of distribution automation, which minimises outage time; the implementation of the outage management system, the restore and repair concept when responding to feeder trips and the use of Business Intelligence to aid with data analytics and improved decision making. He also spearheaded the use of drones to conduct overhead line inspections and other new approaches to drive the digitisation of workflows in the organisation. As team leader, he guided the Commission’s team to the successful negotiation of the first utility scale renewable energy power purchase agreement in TT for the Brechin Castle solar generation plant, being constructed by the consortium of Lightsource bp, Shell and bp," it said.
Earlier in his career, Belle successfully managed the Malabar Substation construction project, deriving sufficient cost savings to expand the original scope to include the construction of two 12 kV feeders (known today as the Railway Road and Subero Street feeders), in addition to the original 66 kV lines, to form the San Rafael-Malabar and the Malabar-Pinto Road circuits and two related two 12 kV feeders.
In addition to the vast number of field projects completed under his guidance, Belle also managed several internal training programmes for craftsmen and technicians, leading to improvements in succession planning and service delivery, including the completion of the first large scale underground supply in the east at Millennium Park, Trincity.
T&TEC thanked Francois, who served T&TEC for 38 years, "for his service and contribution to the commission and, by extension, the country and wish him a happy and fulfilling retirement."
