Eleven months after system failures plunged the Island into darkness on July 14, 2005, a replacement switchboard has been built at the Bermuda Electric Light Company (Belco).

At an official roof-wetting ceremony yesterday, Belco president and CEO Garry Madeiros said this switchboard room will have fire suppressants that are always operational.

An independent inquiry in September 2005 by EA Technologies revealed suppression equipment was switched off inside the switch room where the blaze started because it was indiscriminately going off and releasing life-threatening gas.

?We have done a number of things subsequent to July 14,? Mr. Madeiros said on Friday. ?Obviously we have done a lot about what wasn?t going on.

?In addition to having state-of-the-art suppression and detection systems there is also the process that one has to follow to ensure that they are always operational, always engaged and people now have a safety culture to ensure the first thing is safety and protection and the next thing is operations.?

The new switchboard ? called Phoenix because it ?rose out of the ashes? ? will be energised in the middle of July to bring back two engines that were stranded since the fire.

By August he said the power from a third engine will be put back on the grid for the peak electrical use period of summer.

?The big improvement is the technology we presently have versus what we had before. This technology is much smaller, much more efficient, it doesn?t have oil in it, it has gas, so it does not have the components of flammability as the last one did,? he said.

?It is much more secure. Protection systems that have been put in place are state-of-the-art, so it really provides us a model of what the future will be regard to switch rooms.?

Mr. Madeiros said the new switchboard was built on budget of $10.7 million over seven months to replace a temporary switchboard which was built in November.

Phase II of the project ? continuing through late 2007 ? will include recommendations from EA Technologies to ?minimise the likelihood of supply failures and minimise the duration of supply loss,? a Belco release said.