Haywards is a small hillside suburb in the

Hutt Valley The Hutt Valley (or 'The Hutt') is the large area of fairly flat land in the Hutt River valley in the Wellington region of New Zealand. Like the river that flows through it, it takes its name from Sir William Hutt, a director of the New Zeala ...

near

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

, New Zealand. It is notable for its large

electrical substation A substation is a part of an electrical generation, transmission, and distribution system. Substations transform voltage from high to low, or the reverse, or perform any of several other important functions. Between the generating station and ...

, which is the main switching point for the Wellington region, and the home of the North Island converter station for the

HVDC Inter-Island The HVDC Inter-Island link is a long, 1200 MegaWatt, MW high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system connecting the electricity networks of the North Island and South Island of New Zealand together. It is commonly referred to as the ...

, which links the North and South Island electricity networks together.

History

Haywards railway station was opened on 15 December 1875, along with Belmont railway station. It was closed in 1954 and replaced by

Manor Park railway station Manor Park railway station is on the Great Eastern Main Line serving Manor Park in the London Borough of Newham, east London. It is down the line from London Liverpool Street and is situated between and . Its three-letter station code is M ...

. Haywards was listed in the 1881 New Zealand census as being part of both Mungaroa Riding and Epuni Riding, with a combined population of 58.

Transport

State Highway 58 is the primary route from the

to Pauatahanui and

Porirua Porirua, ( mi, Pari-ā-Rua) a city in the Wellington Region of the North Island of New Zealand, is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area. The name 'Porirua' is a corruption of 'Pari-rua', meaning "the tide swee ...

. It leaves State Highway 2 at Haywards. This highway was first built during the 1870s. From the 1940s to the 1970s there were proposals for a railway line, the

Haywards–Plimmerton Line The Haywards–Plimmerton Line was a railway development proposed several times between 1879 and the 1960s to connect the Hutt Valley and Porirua areas of Wellington via Haywards. 1879 proposal The route was one of three options for a "Proposed ...

, via this route. In June 2010, the results of a road assessment programme indicated that the Haywards Hill road was amongst the worst in the Wellington region, scoring only 2 out a possible 5. Construction of a new elevated interchange at the intersection of SH2 and SH58 at Haywards began in 2015 including a new carpark and footbridge across SH2 to Manor Park, and was completed in 2017. Further safety improvements to SH58 are under construction and estimated to be complete by 2023. These include building median and road-side safety barriers, roundabouts at dangerous road intersections and widening parts of the road to four lanes.

Electrical substation and HVDC converter plant

The Haywards electrical substation is one of national grid operator Transpower's largest substations and is a key part of New Zealand's national electricity network. The North Island converter station for the

link is co-sited with the main HVAC substation, and converts the ±350 kV direct current electricity transmitted from the South Island converter station at Benmore to 220 kV alternating current for the North Island, and vice versa. 220 kV to 110 kV interconnecting transformers at Haywards supply the regional 110 kV network that serves much of the

Wellington Region Greater Wellington, also known as the Wellington Region (Māori: ''Te Upoko o te Ika''), is a non-unitary region of New Zealand that occupies the southernmost part of the North Island. The region covers an area of , and has a population of T ...

. Supply transformers at Haywards step down voltage to 33 kV and 11 kV and provide a connection to the

Wellington Electricity Wellington Electricity, registered as Wellington Electricity Lines Limited, is an electricity distribution company, based in Wellington, New Zealand. Wellington Electricity supplies electricity to approximately 400,000 consumers through over 1 ...

subtransmission and distribution network serving the central-north Hutt Valley, from Trentham in the north to

Taita Taita may refer to: * Taita people, a Bantu ethnic group in Kenya * Taita language, a Bantu language *Taitā, New Zealand, a suburb of Lower Hutt City * Taita Hills, a mountain range in Kenya * Taita Cushitic languages, an extinct pair of Afro-Asi ...

in the south. 220 kV lines connect Haywards to the Wilton substation to supply central Wellington City, and north to Bunnythorpe near Palmerston North to connect with the rest of the North Island grid.

References

{{Reflist Populated places in the Wellington Region Suburbs of Lower Hutt Electric power transmission systems in New Zealand