Associated British Ports

Associated British Ports (ABP) is Britain's largest and leading ports group, handling around 120 million tonnes a year and employing nearly 2,000 staff across the business.  Its Port of Immingham, jointly operated with its sister-port of Grimsby on the South Bank of the Humber, is one of the UK’s largest by tonnage.

It is essential that ABP maintains a robust supply in order to ensure continuity of electrical supply to its customers. ABP’s network has grown steadily over the years and ABP recognises the need for continuing investment in order to ensure reliability of its electrical equipment.

Following a study by ABP’s engineers and after consultation with Switchgear Support Ltd (SSL), which assured ABP that its original Brush Switchgear VSI equipment was suitable for at least a sixty year lifespan, ABP decided to retrofit its entire range of VSI OCBs with vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs).
SSL was requested to supply, install, and test 24 VCBs.  In addition to giving the original VSI units a new lease of life, ABP now has the option of full remote control of the VCBs and the benefit of the improved safety features that VCBs provide.

The VSI switchgear retrofit involved using a number of housing designs, ranging from 1968 to 1986 manufacturing dates, which necessitated varying degrees of mechanical modifications to the housings.  One original VSI panel also had TLF protection, which was converted to microprocessor-based relay protection, thus providing complete interchangeability of all 24 VCBs.

Although SSL has been involved in over 4,000 VSI retrofits, we still encountered mechanical issues on the first install with the maloperation of the shutter linkages in the housing.  After quickly assessing the situation, SSL redesigned the VCB shutter operating mechanism.  After proving the new design on the first install, the ensuing 23 VCBs were installed and commissioned with no problems.  Working very closely with ABP, we ensured circuit outages were kept to an absolute minimum to avoid disruption to many of its critical supplies.

“Over the past few years SSL has also assisted us in the supply of spares and provided valuable technical advice on our original South Wales Switchgear equipment”

Photos courtesy of ABP