A few years ago a customer approached us with a project that they were about to take on in Southern California. They were looking at building a 600 unit, residential high rise apartment complex complete with some major retail stores in the ground floor. They were required to provide an emergency power generation system for this building and this is where Collicutt got involved.

The Design Challenge

There are always challenges to sort through with any project and this one was no exception. Besides the usual design constraints associated with projects in California like strict emissions compliance and seismic ratings, this project had some unique aspects that had to be addressed.

  • First, the generator would have to be installed in the parking garage of the building prior to the construction of the upper floors of the building. This put us on the critical path for project construction. We had to deliver on time!
  • Second, because the overall building design was still in process, we needed to allow for late changes prior to placing the generator into production in the event that we would need to upsize or downsize the generator and its components
  • Third, because of the seismic requirements and the fact that the generator was to be installed inside the building, the fuel tank had to be equipped with ballistic rated retainer walls. Basically, this is a double walled fuel tank that is filled with cement between the inner and outer wall to provide a puncture proof solution for fire rated indoor applications
  • Fourth, because the unit was located indoors, it needed to be equipped with a special exhaust silencer to meet the city sound requirements for indoor applications.
  • Finally, the installation of the generator would need detailed planning, coordination, and safety oversight. Due to the construction site location, offloading and placing the generator would require local road closures with the added challenge of dealing with overhead power lines. This meant that we would have to coordinate a crane and the trucking company within a very tight timeline while ensuring we had the time for a safe lift!

The Solution

Our Collicutt team worked closely with our customer throughout the design phase of this project. As the design progressed the customer realized that their electrical load had increased. Because of this, we upsized the original 1000kW generator to a 1250kW unit designed to provide enough critical power to meet full load requirements with a reserve factor of 10%. The model we selected was a 16V2000 DS1250 with IBC rating, complete with a roof mounted DPF and a UL2085 rated fuel tank.

In addition to this, there were various automatic transfer switch changes and breaker adjustments that the customer requested and we were able to accommodate within the time constraints. We were also able to coordinate the appropriate air quality permit for the customer so that their generator has all the permits required for operation.

The end result was that our customer received the generator at site on schedule. Our trucking and crane contractors were able to safely unload the generator, lower it two stories into the parking garage, and remove their equipment within the allotted road closure permit constraints.

It was a great team effort and now the building program can go on!

 

For more information on this or any other power generation solution, contact us via email or at the number below:

1-888-682-6888 or info@collicutt.com