sparks
ELECTRICAL NEWS
february
2014
10
contractors’ corner
Mark Palmer, Gauteng Electrical Inspection Authority
The COC and redundant electrical equipment
THE apparent disregard by Regis-
tered Persons regarding redundant
electrical equipment – particularly
cables and conductors – when issu-
ing CoCs on existing installations is a
situation that has boggled my brain
for many years.
It is my perception that it is the all
too often used term ‘reasonable’ that
raises its ugly head in this aspect of
ensuring safe electrical installations.
As a contracting industry, many
contractors rely on the ‘access to live
parts’ requirement for safety as the
sole measure of safety in this regard.
It stands to reason that a discon-
nected redundant cable or conduc-
tor would not have any live parts and
therefore, would satisfy the require-
ments of this particular Clause – that
is, SANS 10142-1 Clause 5.1.1.
It is my contention that, in view of
there being no compulsory continu-
ous electrical education policy being
implemented by the authorities, that
the structure and applicability of the
entire SANS Wiring Code is lost to
most electrical contractors. I believe
that it is this very structure that
needs to be understood by Regis-
tered Persons – that Clause 5.1.1 is
not the only safety requirement for
such existing installations.
POWER-GEN Africa and the inaugural DistribuTECH Africa events aim to address
local skills shortfalls through a series of in-depth technical training workshops to be
presented during the conferences and exhibition this year.
POWER-GEN Africa and DistribuTECH Africa will be co-located at the Cape Town
International Convention Centre from 17 to 19 March, attracting industry experts
and power industry professionals from across Africa and abroad.
Now officially sanctioned as CPD (Continual Professional Development) events by
the SAIEE (South African Institute of Electrical Engineers), POWER-GEN Africa and
DistribuTECH Africa will include a number of free workshops, as well as optional
extraWade Africa Decentralised Energy workshops.
The free technical training workshops, presented by carefully selected experts, are
designed to offer delegates the opportunity to receive training in various categories
of the generation, transmission and distribution fields. With this acquired knowl-
edge, delegates will be able to immediately implement what they have learnt back
at their plants.
The workshops will include:
• Introduction to Ethernet Basics – Doron Kowensky, H3I Squared.
• The Art of Cable Fault Location – Nathaniel Folscher, Megger.
• Unified Grid Intelligence – Ameen Hamdon and Anthony Eshpeter, Subnet.
• Wet Coal, A Case Study – Gary Allen, RAM3.
• Squared Ethernet for Utilities – Advanced Introduction into EthernetTechnology –
Darryn Sugerman, H3i.
• Demo of PPE & Cable Cutting Equipment – Stuart Ashton, Pieter Maree and Dev
Naidoo, Surge Technology.
• The ABC of InsulationTesting – Marius Pitzer, Megger.
• ARC Flash Solutions – Rudolf Van Heerden, Schweitzer.
• How to test an OC/EF Relay Quick & Easy – Marius Pitzer, Megger.
• Lighting Dissipation – Marius Grobbelaar and Jeff Edwards, Adriatic Power.
These workshops will be held at the PresentationTheatre, Exhibition Hall on Monday
17 andTuesday 18 March and are free to all delegates and visitors.
TheWade workshops, focusing on the promise of decentralised energy to light up
sub-Saharan Africa, will include expert presentations on:
• Policies and programmes that will create the needed incentives for investment.
• The outlook for natural gas supplies.
• Integration of renewables.
• Distributed technologies, CHP, trigeneration, and onsite power production.
• The Obama Power Africa – developments and opportunities.
To register go to the Power-Gen Africa website and sign up for the workshop in addi-
tion to POWER-GEN or DistribuTECH Africa.
For the full preliminary conference programme and to download the pre-show
guide, detailing the conference, exhibitor list, floor plan, hotel and registration
information, as well as technical tour and workshop details please visit
Free technical training
workshops
Solar power for new generation data centres
Of paramount importance – and
this certainly is an area that I have
spoken heatedly about for many
years – is the fire risk, particularly
in roof spaces. It is this specific area
that SANS 10142-1 Clause 5.2.2 ad-
dresses in some detail. Not only is it
important to ensure that electrical
cables and conductors in current
service be correctly installed, the
aftermath of many years of installa-
tion work and alterations also need
serious consideration.
Of particular concern in older
buildings is that cables may very
well have been installed contrary to
existing standards at the time and
may be unsupported and lying in
potentially dangerous situations.
First, these redundant cables and
conductors provide additional fuel
for fires; and, secondly, pose addi-
tional threats to the occupants when
toxic gases are released during a fire.
As electricians know, sometimes
very little thought has been given to
the construction of roof spaces and,
indeed, the materials used in such
construction.
Many older domestic buildings
have wooden ceilings and any previ-
ous insulation of the ceilings may
well have been compromised over
the years – potentially adding to the
rapid spread of flames.
In addition, the likelihood that
unsupported cables will add to the
accumulated weight on suspended
or older ceilings may potentially lead
to construction failures.
It is unfortunate, however, that
when this industry interprets the
Wiring Code, it looks for the ‘shall
and shall nots’ before applying any
common sense in these issues,
notwithstanding that this ‘common
sense’ already exists in SANS 10142-1
as a whole.
The general scope of the Standard
requires that all electrical work be
performed in a neat and workman-
like manner.
Registered Persons who install and
maintain both new and existing in-
stallations must make themselves
aware of the Standard’s require-
ments and the reasoning behind
many of these requirements.
Perhaps it is time for the
Standard, like many other issues
that are ‘common sense’, to deal
with this issue as safety require-
ment on its own?
Consolidated Electrical Distributor (CED) ran a competition from September to the end of November 2013 whereby anyone who purchased
Chint products worth more than R500 could enter. There were three Windows 8 Lenovo Tablets up for grabs for Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal
and Gauteng customers. The Gauteng winner of the CED completion, Robin Spies from RR Electrical (a client of ARB Electrical Wholesalers in
Nelspruit), receives his prize from CED director, Charle Leibbrandt.
Happy winner takes home a great prize
UPTIME and efficiency benchmarks
have come under the spotlight recent-
ly as business growth targets continue
to be challenged by the prospect of
unreliable utility power, particularly in
remote industrial areas.
JackWard, MD of a power provision-
ing specialist, Powermode, says,“Data
centres are at the core of the concerns
as they are required to deliver 99.9%
uptime, but many are in danger of fall-
Jack Ward
ing considerably short of this goal due
to service delivery issues.”
He says data centres also demand a
considerable financial investment to
maintain – notably in terms of power
consumption for cooling - in an era
in which electricity prices will reach
new highs. In this light, the search
for alternative power sources has
led data centre managers down the
path towards renewable energy and
ultimately solar power.
“One of the first‘high profile’or-
ganisations to adopt solar power for its
data centre was Apple Corp,”saysWard.
“It opted to use solar photovoltaic (PV)
energy to power its facility in North
Carolina in the US. The success of this
installation prompted the commission-
ing of another in Nevada. The solar PV
arrays for each of these installations
supply around 20-million kilowatt
hours (kWh) per year and will be com-
plemented by other natural energy
sources including biogas fuel cells.”
“The energy consumptionmodels
of these major organisations could
easily be adopted by all South African
companies with data centres,”he says.
“The financial, business and ecological
incentives are now in place to assist
business owners tomove rapidly in this
direction.”
Ward spotlights an innovative solu-
tion devised by a US company which
is currently producing a solar pow-
eredmodularisedmicro data centre
targeted at smaller organisations. Each
module is in the formof a conventional
shipping container and comprises a set
of solar panels and storage batteries
together with a number of racks of
energy-efficient servers, networking
equipment and an air conditioning
unit.
The modules are designed to be
placed on the roof of a building – or in
a location that gets maximum sunlight.
“Besides the solar panels, the data
centre draws energy from its batteries
and/or the electrical grid. It is geared to
operate completely off-grid or using a
combination of solar and grid power if
necessary.”
Ward says innovations such as this
are paving the way for organisations
– large and small – across the globe to
act responsibly; to boost their energy
needs while taking control of their
carbon footprints in a world of finite
resources.
Enquiries: (011) 235-7708
