High voltage shutdown
Site: 10 Exchange Square, London EC2AHigh voltage shutdown to allow routine maintenance
Broadgate Estates appointed Team Q on a regular building services maintenance contract for their new 140,000 sq ft building in London. However, some scheduled maintenance required a complete high voltage shutdown of the whole building. For coordination and familiarity reasons, their regular contractor would be the ideal choice to manage the shutdown, but this would involve using an approved specialist to oversee the operation and strict scheduling. A major consideration was that the normal running of the building shouldn’t be affected.
Precise coordination of all parties
Team Q had the required expertise and scheduled the shutdown, in discussions with the building manager, over a bank holiday weekend. This was the least disruptive to building occupiers and added in some contingency time, which a normal weekend would not allow.
A programme of activities was coordinated and communicated to all appropriate personnel. Our high voltage approved person (HVAP) supervised the switching of the 11,000V supply. A combination of load shedding and bus coupling between generators was used to redistribute the power to meet demands and keep critical support and essential data systems up and running, after switchover. Additional engineers were brought in to maintain the 11,000V transformers; test the automatic changeover switch and carry out injection test to the circuit breakers; run a full emergency lighting discharge test; and other periodic electrical inspection and test tasks, which were not possible while the building mains was connected. Specialist engineers were put on standby in case any of the building services or the power generator failed whilst the load was being transferred back onto the main infrastructure.
Building operations uninterrupted
Power down and run up of the supply was coordinated by Team Q. Each piece of equipment was thoroughly checked post-shutdown to ensure everything was operational before engineers left site. The building was left fully functional for when staff returned to work after the bank holiday.
Renewed confidence
Routine feedback showed that Broadgate Estates was satisfied that the work had been carried out effectively. They now have every confidence in the maintenance team to allow coordination of all future tasks, including those requiring high voltage shutdowns.