Introduction

Dairy Crest Group plc is a leading British dairy products company. Its brands include Cathedral City Cheddar cheese, Country Life butter, Utterly Butterly, Vitalite and Clover. EESI has a long-standing relationship with Dairy Crest and have been working with them for more than 20 years.

Project

Their most recent project was to replace the existing waste water system with a new aerated system and EESI was brought in to support the main contractor by designing and installing a switch room to power the new system. Dairy Crest also wanted to use the building as a dedicated forklift battery charging facility.

The contractor delivering the waste water system supplied EESI with motor schedules and from there we calculated the loads that would be required. We also knew what additional power supply was required which enabled us to design a switchboard. The panel was then built to our exact specifications by our chosen specialist, Schneider.

Challenges

Reactive power factor was essential on this project as, with motors at the plant kicking in all the time, a standard power factor wouldn’t respond quickly enough. The power factor installed reacts immediately and saves energy saving by responding appropriately to the power levels required.

The forklift battery charging station is unusual as you wouldn’t normally tie a forklift charging bay onto a switch room. Added to that, this was both a low and high voltage switch room, so we brought in a high voltage specialist to assist on that element.

Part of the project included a back up generator, to ensure that the essential parts of the equipment would still run in the event of a power failure on site. We calculated the power that would be required and provided a generator to back that up. Normally there would be an automatic changeover on power failure but in this case a manual change over was required, so that if there’s a loss of power everything gets isolated. They can then start everything back up at their own pace, when everybody’s ready and it’s safe to do so.

We also designed and installed internal and external LED lighting solutions and a state-of-the-art aspirated fire detection system, which is far more accurate in terms of the types of particles it detects and has variable sensitivity. It’s not something you see very often but it’s a very flexible system with a lot of benefits.

Solution

We knew what was going in the substation so we were able to design a building around what was needed in terms of size. This allowed us to be very efficient with space and improve ease of use, particularly with regard to the forklift charging bay.

We liaised with the end-user to ensure all the systems met their specifications. The metering is run through a fibre-optic network back to their main centre. Fibre-optic network installation is more specialist than most electrical contractors would install but at EESI we pride ourselves on delivering a comprehensive turnkey service and have a team of experts who can handle more specialised requirements.

Strong project management has been essential throughout this project. We’ve had to work closely with the client and the other contractors on the site to ensure a smooth changeover of systems with as little disruption to day-to-day activities as possible. We handled everything: the building side, the design, the construction, the electrical, even the actual move in.

We’re continuing to work with the client and have engineers and facilities staff there all the time. At the moment we’re replacing the ceilings of the main facility as part of an ongoing facilities maintenance package.