As already mentioned several times on our blog, the problem of new needs; the increase in production capacity of which often leads to the evolution of the installed low-voltage switchboard. The production site of this pharmaceutical company of about 300 people had to meet a growing demand for its products and thus increase the number of its installations supplied by the Low Voltage switchboard.
Is it possible to increase the capacity of the Low Voltage board?
The pharmaceutical group wanted to add additional equipment to a production unit, the construction of which was stopped due to a need to increase production capacity. We were contacted by this company to bring a fresh insight into the possibilities of evolution while fitting in with the economic vision of the project.
The electrical panel was installed in a healthy, air-conditioned electrical room. It did not present any particular problem for our team and there wereno risks to the safety of the operators. The original manufacturer of the Low Voltage switchboard offered a complete replacement.
Project preparation: audit and possible solutions
Recognised as a manufacturer for our expertise in the field of low-voltage electrical switchboards, this customer asked us for a second opinion. We initially proposed to audit his panel to determine the possible solutions.
The audit of the table focused mainly on the following verifications:
- Its’ general condition
- The function of the protetion devices
- Availability of spare parts
- The power balance
- Busbar capacity
- The absence of any evidence of overheating
- Thermographic measurements
- The condition of the cables
- Available space in the electrical room
In view of the good results of our audit and the space available without modifying the electrical room, we proposed to the company to extend its electrical panel with a new GALAXIS column. This solution was chosen by the pharmaceutical group who wanted to keep the existing panel and thus reduce the costs of the operation.
Implementation of the GALAXIS type extension
We asked our client to program a 4-hour shutdown of his installation to take the dimensions of the existing columns and busbars. During this shutdown one of our experts noted the following information:
- Dimensioning of existing columns
- Number of bars per phase
- Section of the bars
- Order of phases
- Positioning of the phase bars
- Positioning of the earth bar
The next step consisted of transmitting to our technical design office all this information for the 3D design of an adaptation cell- the interface between the existing board and the new GALAXIS column. Following the validation by our customer of the studied solution we put the adaptation cell and the GALAXIS column into production in one of our French factories.
After planning an 8-hour outage of the existing switchboard, our service team proceeded to install the solution and assisted the client in re-start of the switchboard.
By responding favourably to our client's initial need, we have contributed to extending the life of his electrical panel.
