Located on the east side of Macquarie Street in Sydney, the Parliament House of NSW was the location of Australia’s first Parliament. This location has substantial history and heritage in NSW.
In this location in 1816, Sydney’s first permanent hospital was established. The 2 original buildings, The Mint building and The Northern Wing (residences for surgeons) are now part of Parliament House. The Legislature occupied building in 1829 and expanded the building over time. The building is now 12 stories high and approximately 42000 sqm.
The current electrical distribution system provides electrical services to Parliament House, Macquarie wing of NSW State Library and Central Plant for chilled and hot water which provides full service for Sydney Hospital, Sydney Eye Hospital and NSW State Library.
Stage 1 – Electrical Upgrade (2015-2016)
The Main Switchboard (MSB) located in Parliament House prior to 2016 needed upgrade. This was an important project because power outages due to downtime on the old MSB could lead to reputational damage, safety responsibility and potential legal liability for NSW Government and Parliament.
Southern Cross Switchboards (SCS) were fortunate to have won the tender to manufacture and deliver:
- 3 x 3200A Form 3b MSBs to replace the old single MSB
- 11 x ATS panels
- Remote panel enclosure for remote control of breakers.
- PM8000 series meter and gateways for all ATS
The major challenge for the installing contractor was that the old MSB, located on level 3 could not be moved without significant planning and preparation due to the risk of substantial downtime to this critical facility. The plan was to migrate services from the 1 off old MSB to 3 new MSBs in stages. The location for the new MSB1 was in position of the old MSB. Extensive co-ordination was done between the installing contractors, NSW Parliament House stakeholders and Southern Cross Switchboards to ensure the installation upgrade flowed through smoothly.
Overall the project was a great success.
Time-lapse video of the construction of the MSBs located here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fjtnqP0Kxs
Stage 2 – Addition of the standby generators and electrical upgrade of the Mechanical Services (2017-2018)
In 2015 the client decided to implement 2 new standby generators. For SCS, this stage of project began in 2017 and is to be complete by mid-2018. Southern Cross Switchboards (SCS) were once again fortunate enough to be involved in the switchboard portion of the project. For Southern Cross Switchboards the project included:-
- Modification of MSBs manufactured in 2015 to integrate 2 off closed transition ATS systems for Essential and Non-Essential services.
- 1 x 5000A Form 4a/4b Generator MSB with 2 x 2500A Incomers
- 3 x New Mechanical Services Switchboards (MSSBs)
The Plant Room located in Level 1 housed the new switchboards for Stage 2 of the project. Once again significant planning and preparation was required to minimize downtime to essential services to this important site. Extensive co-ordination was done between the installing contractors, NSW Parliament House stakeholders and Southern Cross Switchboards to ensure the installation flowed through smoothly.
Compared to Stage 1, the stage 2 portion of works had significantly more onsite works. This was coordinated by our dedicated team by back to back shifts to complete over one weekend.
We are thankful to all involved in making this project successful and look forward to future projects such as this.
Project Value $ 1.3 mil