In November this year ACTOM Power Systems (APS) was awarded the electrical works for a new 132kV gas-insulated switchgear (GIS) indoor switching station by the City of Cape Town.
The latest contract at the Morgen Gronde switching station in Brackenfell will supply power to a large-scale data centre campus that is being built on an adjacent site, which is premised as the first of several in the vicinity.
“This is also the fourth substation contract we have received in as many years involving the provision of power to local cyber facilities, which epitomises how this particular market segment has become the primary driver of substation infrastructure development countrywide,” commented John McClure, Power Systems’ Operations Manager, who added that this project also caters for the envisaged future developments and network strengthening of the surrounds.
In tendering for the contract of over R100-million APS partnered an international switchgear supplier, Xian XD Switchgear Electric Company of China, making Morgen Gronde the first of its kind in the City of Cape Town where the GIS switchgear will be designed and manufactured by an OEM outside of the conventional Europe-based producer niche.
“Consequently, we were put through a rigorous evaluation, with multiple rounds of comprehensive clarifications and close examination of our technical offering in particular, including all GIS type test certification, to ensure absolute conformity with every detail of the applicable IEC standards,” John pointed out.
“A valuable spin-off of this process, however, is that with full technical compliance now conclusively established, it stands us in good stead to extrapolate our GIS offering in collaboration with Xian XD to the rest of the South African market.”
Xian XD will supply a 20-bay 132kV GIS switchboard for the Morgen Gronde switching station.
The contract also includes the provision of a substation control system by which all events, measurements, operations and control are achieved from either a local HMI station or the city’s main control centre. “This substation control system (SCS) means that the entire switching station will be fully automated with completely remote functionality,” John commented.
Other ACTOM businesses involved in the project are Static Power, which will supply DC chargers and battery banks for backup power, and Electrical Products, which will supply all cabling and cable accessories.
Construction of the switching station edifice will take another year or so to complete and Power Systems will only gain access for the electrical installation component thereafter. As a result the contract is scheduled to run through until May 2023.
“The structural design of the building has to incorporate the parameters of our specific equipment, so we are under pressure to complete all the electrical designs to ensure that the breaking of ground is not unduly held up,” said John.
