Switchgear & Electrical

Power is the life-blood of every data centre and good design and careful installation by our qualified engineers will ensure that the power flows, all of the time. The design will take into account the level of resilience most appropriate to the needs of your organisation which might typically be TIA Tier 4 for a hospital or a bank, Tier 3 or even Tier 2 for less critical facilities.

Switchgear

Switchgear for data centres can either be of the standard “off-the-shelf” type or can be purpose made for the application. In either case it must be designed such that:

• There are no single points of failure
• Maintenance can be carried out safely without shutting down the IT load
• There is capacity for future expansion which can be added without shutting down the IT load

With proper design standard switchgear can be made to meet the above criteria, but it does have limitations. For example, on occasions it will be necessary to isolate a switchboard. With dual A & B supplies this does not necessitate shutting down the room but it does mean the room is on one supply for a time, and so is at risk.

This can be overcome by using ‘Form 4’ switchgear which can be worked on safely while live. Having switchgear purpose made for the particular application also means other requirements, e.g. metering, bus-couplers, isolation transformers ‘Castell’ interlocks and so on, can be incorporated.

Bespoke switchgear may appear more expensive initially, but over the life of a data centre it will pay for itself in lower maintenance costs, increased functionality and reduced risk.

Electrical Installation

We are NICEIC registered contractors and accordingly our installations are independently inspected on a regular basis. This is the minimum standard we work to and we are proud of the fact that the quality of our work is second to none.

We have direct experience of all elements of data centre electrical systems from the sub-station to the server. And because our design engineers and electricians work only on data centres they are familiar with their special requirements.