Our COMECA Middle East team carried out the retrofit of circuit breakers on a NORMABLOC low voltage switchboard on behalf of a major producer of high quality aluminium in the United Arab Emirates.
Extending the service life of low voltage switchboards while guaranteeing safety, reliability and continuity of service of the installations is possible without replacing all the equipment. Retrofitting is an operation that consists of changing obsolete or defective equipment parts and components while maintaining the characteristics of the equipment in your electrical panel and the original functional unit. Learn more about retrofit solutions.
Customer’s issue: obsolescence of air circuit breakers on a NORMABLOC panel
Our COMECA Middle East team provides ongoing support to its customer in the maintenance and modernisation of these switchgear units and has recently replaced the GemStart4 motor protection relays and EVOCOM components with GemStart5 motor protection relays. 
A twenty year old NORMABLOC Low Voltage switchboard is installed in the gas and steam turbine area to supply the essential auxiliaries to these generators.
The operation and maintenance of the switchgear was complicated by the fact that the incoming circuit breakers had become obsolete. The Spectronic circuit breakers used were tripping unexpectedly and causing loss of production.
Following this observation, our COMECA Middle East team suggested the renovation of these old circuit breakers.
Circuit breakers are major components in an electrical installation. Therefore, it is important to maintain them in good condition and to ensure the storage or availability of their spare parts.
The switchboard concerned supplies critical loads, it is not possible to carry out a complete shutdown to inspect every open circuit breaker or to verify measurements of existing busbar connections.
Our client also wanted to keep the same protection features for the circuit breaker and the characteristics of the electrical system also had to remain the same.
Our answer: prefabricated retrofit solution on air circuit breaker
Designing and executing the retrofit without taking measurements of the existing circuit breakers was a challenge and the COMECA Middle East team had to prove the protection features before installing the new circuit breakers.
This switchgear is supplying power to generator auxiliaries and end user has selected the shutdown window of generator preventive maintenance to execute the job.
Our team proposed a prefabricated retrofit solution for the existing circuit breakers, including a new circuit breaker, busbar connections, covers and all the necessary accessories.
This solution directly replaces the existing circuit breaker without the need for additional shutdown of the switchboard for measurement.
Implementation of the solution:
To meet these needs, we establish new supply chains and quality procedures and carry out all the purchasing of copper, sheet metal and the circuit breakers. All assembly, installation and testing is carried out on-site by our team.
The shutdown duration to perform the operation was a major issue for our customer. For one circuit breaker, the entire retrofit operation, including fixed part and bus bar links, took 8 hours.
We check the protection and control functionality of the circuit breaker before installation and adapt the existing control wiring to the new circuit breaker. We install all the other components (ammeter, voltmeter, etc) adapting the drillings to keep the same functionality as the existing one.
In total, our team worked 2 days without interruption to complete the retrofit of the two circuit breakers.
To help our customers ensure the continuity of service of their installation, we train their maintenance teams in the operation and maintenance of the new circuit breakers.
In summary
As an industrial performance partner, we support our customers and provide them with appropriate solutions in a timely manner.
The success of the intervention as well as the training has increased the users' confidence in our retrofit solutions and in COMECA Middle East's expertise.
Our customer upgraded their existing NORMABLOC switchboard, improved its functionality and anticipated sufficient spare parts for critical components such as the circuit breaker to ensure business continuity.
