GoTo Electrical completed a safety upgrade in 2021 at a secure Geelong government facility.
The goal of this project was to reduce the arc flash potential on some 30-year-old motor control centres.
Air Circuit Breaker (ACB) Installation
After having an arc flash study completed at a local government facility, it was identified that a significant hazard of arc flash was present in the main Motor Control Centres (MCCs) controlling the air handling for the facility. After the onsite engineers assessed the options to reduce the arc flash potential and designed an appropriate fix, GoTo Electrical was given the chance to tender for the works which saw 6 x 1000A ACBs in already built cubicles where installed between the 6.6kV/415V transformer and the MCCs.
The works included where to mount the cubicle in place and seal the plinth to the floor, install new cable ladder trays where required, remove existing 400mm2 PVC/PVC SDI cables that ran in parallel between the transformer and MCC, and install new 300mm2 XLPE/PVC SDI cables in parallel from the transformer to the ACB and then from the ACB to the MCC.
Also required was a remote operator’s station which allowed the operation of the ACB to occur from a distance to ensure that if a fault occurred at switching, then there will be no risk to the operators. Additional to the remote operation was remote monitoring so a data cable was installed and linked back into the plant control system onsite.
Finally, due to the recent upgrade to some harmonic compensation units, 3 ACB cubicles required the installation of CTs to give readings back to the harmonic compensators.
