N Cherry Electrical (NCE), a Level Two BEE contributor, recently announced it has won a tender to supply Telkom’s strategic buildings with backup power, as part of their risk and growth facilities upgrades, in collaboration with Master Power Technologies. Once implemented, the whole building will be able to continue operations in the event of a blackout or load shedding.
Master Power Technologies and NCE have a long history of working together in the electrical industry, sometimes as competitors and in collaboration with each other on other occasions.
Norman Cherry, MD of NCE says NCE probably won the tender due to its long track record of excellent service to Telkom over many years. When it came to supplying Telkom with the best generators and electrical equipment it required for the project, NCE once again turned to Master Power, drawing on Cherry’s experience in dealing with the company’s products and service levels in the past.
The two companies will now collaborate to ensure Telkom’s substantial investment in the mission critical equipment is installed properly and functions optimally over its lifespan.
The project will see the installation of four 11 000 V medium-voltage generator systems with full reticulation for Telkom, covering all 12-floors of the building. To ensure the generators can handle almost any power outage, new diesel tanks will also be installed along with new diesel filtering systems. The filtering systems purify the diesel before it is fed into the generators, removing impurities and contributing to the longer life of the generators.
Cherry says Telkom will be using medium-voltage generator systems for the first time. These will prove to be more reliable for providing the building’s electrical requirements. The quality, reliability and lifespan of the equipment was one of the key elements in the tender process.
Neill Schreiber, business development manager at Master Power Technologies says the way NCE will implement the solution will result in a very stable power supply for Telkom. When the power fails, all four generators will start and take over the supply of electricity to the building. Once the supply is stable, only two will continue operating until the mains power is restored. This will assist in prolonging the life of the generators and allow for failover services should something go wrong with one of them.
The building works for the project was started in November 2014. Currently two mobile generators have been installed to provide power while the primary generators are installed. The first one is already installed with the others scheduled to be in place in August . Cherry says testing and commissioning will follow and he expects the system to be fully operational well before the final deadline of 10 December 2015.