Electrical Distribution System Upgrades

Wiley|Wilson was tasked with total the replacement of the College’s 13.8 kV electrical distribution system. The existing system was 1960s vintage and had been experiencing increasing numbers of failures in recent years. In addition, the system had a radial configuration with only one utility source, and contained very few sectionalizing switches. For these reasons, outages typically affected the entire campus, and system maintenance was difficult to schedule.

Our work included replacing the existing 13.8kV electrical distribution system including ductbank infrastructure to accommodate electrical, as well as telecommunications throughout the campus We also coordinated with the local utility to obtain a second electrical source to the campus in order to improve system reliability. The new electrical distribution system included replacing the service switchgear with new metal-clad gear allowed the College to bring both new 13.8 kV service feeders into a single piece of switchgear as well as use a bus-tie arrangement to automatically switch the entire College load to one source upon a utility outage. Our design of an automated primary selective configuration offered several advantages to the College, the most significant being that after testing and commissioning, it has proven to keep building outages, caused by either utility or campus feeder faults, to a duration less than 5 seconds.

Wiley|Wilson also performed the protective device coordination study and provided relay settings to the testing firm on this project. We also provided on-site support during the commissioning of the automated primary selective system.