Case Study: Bender Commissioning in One of the Largest HVAC Dedicated Facilities in Canada
The Energy Services Acquisition Program project, ESAP for short, is Public-Private Partner (P3) project aimed at overhauling and modernizing Ottawa’s district energy system in its city, providing heating and cooling to more than 60 buildings in Ottawa and Gatineau.
The Government of Canada has invested $1.5 billion for the first phase of this project, to be completed by 2026. Bender is proud to be selected for the supply of its equipment within the ESAP project.
Confederation Building Commissioning
The first building for this project is an existing plant that has been operating since 1959, named Confederation Height Plant. Bender’s involvement in this building is the supply of new neutral grounding resistors and ground fault monitoring equipment inside the switchgears and switchboards.
The challenge for commissioning the large amount of equipment has been to ensure that the different components (ground fault monitors, current transformers, communication gateways, etc.) are wired correctly between switchgears and switchboards. Thankfully with these brand-new enclosures, it was easy to address some initial wiring errors and ensure that all Bender equipment communicated with each other.
The Bender Advantage
One significant advantage of Bender is the clear messaging for any alarm detected, including wiring errors. This has helped the service team tremendously when troubleshooting to narrow down the wiring errors reported by the Bender components, namely the neutral grounding resistor monitor NGRM700, multi-channel residual current monitor RCMS490 and communication gateway and HMI CP907-i. With these components, Bender’s system monitors ground faults on pumps and motors, with VFD’s or not, and other equipment for heating and cooling within the plant, for a grand total of 40 loads.
Additionally, Bender has provided a complete NGR monitoring package for the 600V emergency generator of the plant. NGR’s allow limiting the amount of let-through ground fault current in the generator, thus protecting it from the potential harm of higher ground fault currents.
Commissioning these products is simple, but the Bender service team is thorough in its testing. We verify all user wiring, including power, CT connections, alarms, and communication. We also test the functionality of each piece of equipment, including all the current transformers one by one, by the use of CT current injection. Finally, we also test the different NGR states, including open and shorted NGR, as required by the Canadian Electrical Code.
Conclusion
Bender can support customers from start to finish, highlighted by this HVAC project. By providing technical assistance at the conceptual stage and commissioning those systems, Bender helps provide peace of mind for customers that their systems are protected safely as per any Electrical Code requirement. If you are interested in learning more about Bender capabilities, feel free to reach out to your local Bender representative.
For more information about this application or to learn more about Bender technology related to your specific application, contact our team of experts.
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