Stella Maintenance Technologies Limited

As part of an ongoing site wide electrical upgrade, one industrial unit required a new installation for 3 phase and 1 phase power and general area lighting.

Since this was an operating business, no loss of supply was possible, therefore a new design had to be developed which would allow a completely new installation be put in along side the old.

A lighting design was done by us to provide general area lighting from 250 watt metal halide lobay luminaires, which were installed into multiple circuits for selected switching as required.

The new installation provided an incoming 200 amp switchfuse isolator, 3 phase energy meter and 415 volt, 125 amp TPN Distribution Board with multiple outgoing circuits all electrical overload protected by Miniature Circuit Breakers' (MCB's).

New 415 volt and 230 volt socket outlets and 3 phase isolators were installed around the walls of the facility for the various machines.

A transfer of supply took place over a weekend with the client returning on a Monday morning to operate from the new installation.

The sub main switchroom on Galaxy Business Park consisted of a 430 volt, 400 amp oil circuit breaker supplied from 2 x 0.3 in² 4 core armoured feeder cables operating in parallel. A busbar system had multiple switchfuse isolators connected for the outgoing loads, all of which were separately metered to the industrial units they were supplying.

The age of the installation was about fifty (50) years and the main incoming OCB was in a poor state of repair with the oil not having been sample tested or changed for at least fifteen (15) years, to our knowledge.

We designed and installed a new main custom built panel board rated at 400 amp with short circuit and overload protection and multiple MCCB feeder switches for the connected loads.

Some existing cables were too short to re-route into the new panel board, so new short lengths of feeder cables were installed into the panel board ready for making in-line bicast joints on the transferred feeders.

All outgoing supplies were fitted with new 3 phase energy meters and a 1 phase DB was installed for local power and lighting.

One (1) of the original 0.3 in² 4 core armoured cables was cut and re-routed into the panel board, cable `u` clamp brackets were made to secure the cable in position and the panel board was fitted with a double cable spreader box and reinforced gland plate to take the mechanical stresses of the old cable.

The complete project was designed and installed along side the original supply and a `one off` bank holiday shutdown facilitated the transfer of supplies. The installation was commissioned into service with phase rotation confirmed ready for the users to start up their operations without difficulty.

The incoming power supply to the Club was 3 phase, 415 volt, 80 amps/phase with a capacity of 57kVA. Over the years, the internal distribution had been added to and the connected load had increased above the supply capacity.

This project had two (2) objectives, the first being to coordinate with NEDL to increase the installed capacity to 100kVA through a new 185.0mm² 4 core feeder cable to a service cut out, new metering panel and sub main feeder switch, providing 140 amps/phase.

The second part was to design and install a new custom built sub main panel board distribution and transfer all the electrical loads from the old distribution boards and isolators into the new MCCB panel board and TPN 415 volt distribution boards, all fitted with overload protection.

This project was completed within three (3) weeks from when the new NEDL supply was installed, without any disruption to the Club's normal opening hours.

A major difficulty we encountered on this project was that very few of the original circuits were correctly identified for duty. This meant that as each circuit was isolated and disconnected it needed to be tested to verify its service, before being transferred into the new DB's.

The project was signed off by a delighted client who now had sufficient power to run their facility from a modern distribution fully marked up for all services

COMPUTER orBIT is a leading provider of computer hardware and software solutions in the North East, providing sales, service, repair and technical advice to both public and business sector users. As part of their business expansion plans, they acquired an ex car showroom and garage premises which was completely stripped to the internal brick in readiness for refurbishment.

We carried out detailed designs for all power, general area and decorative lighting and produced maximum demand load calculations to apply to the electricity distribution company for a new upgraded 415volt 3 phase supply.

All new distribution equipment was installed together with new ring circuits for general use, dedicated supplies for server room and all CAT5 cabling to data points. Recessed modular lighting and decorative downlights were installed to different parts of the premises and the project also included a full Emergency Lighting installation and Automatic Fire Detection and Alarm system.

Following completion of the main project, we worked with our client fine tuning the electrical installation to meet his needs and installing additional power supplies for both the HVAC and CCTV installations.

We provide ongoing maintenance support to all COMPUTER orBIT business premises in the region.