Substation room ventilation

All electrical rooms and substations need to have an air ventilation system.

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Picture 1 – Ventilation exhaust fan for an LV room

Electrical parts and switchgears generate heat. Without ventilation, the generated heat will cause the temperature in the room to rise.

If this heat is not discharged out of the room, sooner or later the room temperature can reach a level where it can be dangerous to operate the electrical equipment, theoretically.

The higher the room temperature, the lower the rate of dissipation of the generated heat from electrical parts and equipment to the surrounding air.

This can cause hot spots on equipment, especially at the connections between power cables and switchgears to reach a critical temperatures that eventually can lead to premature failure of the related parts (eg. Circuit breakers).

On top of that, nowadays many components of the electrical control and protection system use digital electronics and microprocessors.

These components are no doubt designed and manufactured to reliably operate at maximum possible temperatures inside electrical rooms and substations.

However, life is never perfect. Even good manufacturers nowadays outsource parts of the manufacturing process to some third parties somewhere.

In any case, electronic and digital systems are always composed of many small components.

The two facts above means more possibilities that s0mething can fail or malfunction at high room temperature.

So it is definitely important to have a reliable ventilation for and electrical room and substations.

The above picture shows a ducted mechanical ventilation.

For simple substation buildings that are small and isolated, natural ventilation accomplished through louvers that are suitable located for intake and exhaust are usually sufficient.

However, when a substation or an electrical room forms part of a main building, it can be difficult to provide suitable locations for the air intake and air exhaust openings.

In that case, forced ventilation by the use of a motor-driven mechanical exhaust fan may be necessary.

Even then the motorized fan alone might not be good enough. If only one of the four sides of the electrical room wall can be used for both inlets of outside cold air and the exhaust air, there may be a short circuit of the circulated air flow.

This may make the exhaust system ineffective.

That is why a ducting system is utilized in Picture 1 above.

With a ducting system, the outside air can be forced to flow over intended locations and equipment before it is sucked into the exhaust grilles when the fan is in operation.

The exhaust grille locations can then be suitably designed to suit the layout and location of the electrical room and the equipment


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Hinged louvers for maintenance

With the following pictures of 2 ft x 2 ft recessed fluorescent corridor lighting, I meant to show how the louvers of fluorescent light fixtures are provided with hinge for ease of maintenance.

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Lighting installation design

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Picture 1: 2 ft x 2 ft fluorescent corridor lighting

All parts of an electrical installation must be designed with enough provisions for access to do repair and maintenance works.

Even for the not so complicated things like fluorescent light fixtures like the ones in the above picture.

Note that the ceiling corridor here used the plaster ceiling type. Unlike ceiling panels that are removable in 2 ft by 2 ft or 2 ft by 4 ft sizes as they are installed onto ceiling tees, the plaster ceiling type needs to be broken if the maintenance need to access to the mechanical and electrical services installed above the ceiling.

After the maintenance work is done, the opening need to be sealed back to the original condition.

It is a messy work.

So here is a classic example of the need to have electrical fixtures purposely designed for access without breaking things.

Picture 2: Closer view of aluminium louvers with hinge

The above picture shows a closer view of light fixture, with the louvers swinged down and pivoted at the hinge.

While the picture below shows a few of the same type of the fluorescent lights during normal operation.

Picture 3: Lighted fluorescent lights

The provision of louvers is not only good for lighting at plaster ceiling areas; it is just at convenient where 2 x 2 ft or 2 x 4 ft ceiling is used.

Picture 4 below shows a 2 ft x 4 ft fixture installed at a 2 ft x 2 ft ceiling area.

Picture 4: 2 x 4 ft Fluorescent Light

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