July 1, 2003
System VI™ Switchgear: Best Supporting Role at TV and Film Production Company.
Background
S&C System VI Switchgear provides switching and protection for a TV and film production company’s sound stages in this recently renovated building.
The metering section in the middle of this System VI lineup is only six-feet high. At four feet in height, Vista UDS units have an even lower profile.
This System VI assembly blends in well with the landscape and nearby transformers.
A Canadian provincial government wanted to prevent a well-known television and film production company from leaving one of its major cities. The growing production company needed up-to-date facilities for their sound stages, but suitable quarters seemed unavailable. To entice the company to stay, the government offered them a vintage building constructed in the early 1900s.
The vacant building clearly needed a major overhaul. Rooms would have to be reconstructed to provide the necessary acoustics and staging. But there was a complication: Since the building had landmark status, no changes could be made to its stone facade. Aesthetics were a major issue too.
The outdated electrical service was inadequate to handle the large lighting load of the sound stages and would need to be completely replaced. New 25-kV switchgear would be needed. But air-insulated 25-kV metal-enclosed switchgear was considered to be too bulky. S&C System VI™ Switchgear, on the other hand, offered a very attractive solution.
System VI consists of compact SF6-insulated S&C Vista® Underground Distribution Switchgear units connected by means of gas-to-air through-bushings to buswork in an adjacent air-insulated bay. This bay can contain voltage transformers and current transformers for metering or other equipment. Additional Vista UDS and air-insulated bay combinations may be added as needed. All the switching and protection features available with conventional metal-enclosed switchgear are possible with System VI.
What did they do?
S&C provided the System VI Switchgear lineup shown below. A Vista UDS unit is connected on each side of the air-insulated metering bay, resulting in an assembly only 16 feet wide. The Vista units are only 4 feet high and the metering bay is only 6 feet high. To provide the same functions, a conventional 25-kV metal-enclosed switchgear lineup would need to be twice as wide and more than 10 feet high!
As shown in the single-line diagram below, two utility sources feed the load-interrupter switches in Ways 1 and 2 of a Model 321 Vista UDS unit. The fault interrupter in Way 3 responds to internal faults in the metering bay. The Model 404 Vista UDS includes four fault interrupter ways, each protecting a new transformer.
Results
The System VI Switchgear installation blends with nearby transformers and landscaping, as shown in the photo at bottom. Although it doesn’t take center stage at the production company, System VI has a leading role in supporting the illusions created. Without it, there would be no “lights, cameras, action!”