Standby Power - Commercial
The Client: Innovation Place - Arthur Street, North Sydney
Providing generators to a plant room on the 23rd floor in a commercial building in Sydney – from road closures through to the hire of 100 metre special lift crane and final commissioning, EPSA managed the whole project.
The Background
100 Arthur Street, North Sydney, is ‘Innovation Place’ and when the building’s facilities manager, Savills, needed to organise standby power for a new tenant the project really called for some innovative thinking.
David Walton is Savills Facilities Manager and was charged with the responsibility of overseeing the project on the 23rd floor of the eighteen-month-old building.
According to David, the building was designed with a back up generator plant room on the 23rd floor so when a new tenant leased three floors and required their own uninterruptible power supply it then became a question of how to meet their needs quickly and economically.
“The tenant’s requirement was for a 250 kVA generator but following discussions with the Project Manager, Norman Disney & Young, the building’s owner opted for a bigger 700 kVA unit as it would enable other tenants to access emergency power in the future if required.
“Norman Disney & Young were responsible for specifying and selecting the most appropriate generator, which ended up being a Caterpillar unit through Energy Power Systems Australia.
“Rick Clarke from Energy Power Systems Australia stepped up with Heyday Electrical and co- ordinated the entire generator installation programme from road closures through to the hire of the special 100 metre crane that was required to lift the generator and ancillary equipment through a small opening on the 23rd floor.
“The project was conducted in an extremely tight time frame in order to satisfy the tenant’s needs and Rick kept us in the loop every step of the way up to commissioning and hand over, which all went off without a hitch,” David said.
The Requirement
Michael Markidis from Norman Disney & Young was the Services Engineer and was instrumental in having the generators capacity increased from 250 kVA to 700 kVA, as from his perspective the building’s owner was investing in the vicinity of one million dollars so it made commercial sense to build in plenty of additional capacity to cater for future tenant requirements.
“The biggest challenges with this project were the budget, access – as the plant room was on the 23rd floor and the time frame given to us by the client.
“Having dealt with Rick, Heyday and the EPSA team on numerous other projects we knew that the Caterpillar gen-set wouldn’t let the owners down and that if Rick and Heyday said they could do it on time and on budget, it would be done on time and on budget.
“And with ‘Innovation Place’ they really excelled. Rick organised the bulk of the installation including the preparation and implementation of the traffic management plan for the road closure, as well as lifting all the equipment into place on the 23rd floor.
“From our point of view it’s always good to deal with contractors that are true to their word and with Rick, Heyday and Energy Power Systems Australia what they promise they deliver,” Michael said.
The Solution
For Energy Power Systems Australia the ‘Innovation Place’ contract was just another day at the office, well not quite.
According to their brief the building was constructed with a house generator for back-up lighting and air conditioning, any additional emergency power supply for tenants had to be housed in a dedicated plant room that was located on level 23.
So when Norman Disney & Young briefed EPSA and Heyday on their requirements the project took on more than just recommending a 700 kVA gen-set, as Rick Clarke explained.
“Level 23 meant an external lift with the only access being through a small opening in the side of the building, so we needed to recommend a model that we could not only deliver on time but who’s physical envelope would enable it to be craned through the opening.
“For us, being a single-source Caterpillar electric power systems supplier recommending and supplying the most suitable solution was straight forward. In this case it was a C18 Caterpillar 700 kVA generator set that combines CAT’s field proven lightweight and fuel efficient 18 litre diesel engine with a CAT generator that’s been
performance matched to the output characteristics of the engine.
“But what made the ‘Innovation Place’ contract particularly interesting was the preparation and lead-up work that was required prior to the actual installation. “Initially we had to arrange for a high-rope contactor to abseil down the building to remove the external louvres on the plant room and some of the building’s facade the week before to facilitate access.
“We organised the preparation of a traffic management plan which we cleared with North Sydney Council that enabled us to close off Arthur Street from 5am on the Sunday morning of the lift. “This also included dealing with
‘The Men From Mars’, a specialist high-lift crane company with a 100 metre mast, to lift the Caterpillar 4 tonne generator, generator switchboard, attenuators, day fuel tank and pipe work, and the exhaust silencer with pipe work into the plant room and then prayed for good weather.
The Results
“And after a nervous start and some spectacular photos the lift went off as planned and was all over by mid afternoon.
“From here we proceeded with a fairly standard installation that included installing intake and exhaust attenuation and ducting, sound proofing the room, fitting an exhaust silencer and a catalytic purifier, as well as installing and connecting the day fuel tank to main tank in the basement.
“The Heyday Group was then able to connect the system to the tenants UPS room located on the 14th floor enabling us to commission the generator set.
“The final test was conducted at 11pm, where the unit was run at full throttle and passed the Council’s compliance tests with flying colours,” Rick said.
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