Schneider Electric Romania has completed equipping the buildings of the Continental Automotive Research and Development Center in Timișoara, with electrical installations equipped with cutting-edge digital solutions.
Growing its presence in Timișoara, by expanding the already existing research and development center, located in the same area as the company’s electronic components factory in the city on Bega, Continental Automotive Romania needed a partner which, from the perspective of electrical installations, would be able, through its solutions, to ensure the continuous availability of electricity, to prevent or quickly identify faults of an electrical nature and also to contribute to the efficiency of electricity costs, both through operational efficiency and by reducing losses.
“Being involved since the design phase, Schneider Electric Romania responded to these requirements through reliable electrical equipment, integrated in cutting-edge digital solutions,” said Lucian Enaru, Country General Manager, Schneider Electric Romania. “We were thus able to leverage our experience in energy efficiency and ensure that the implemented project supports our client in meeting their sustainability goals, goals derived from values that we share.”
The general electrical switchboards provided within the project are “type tested” PrismaSeT Plus functional systems – configured in the communicating version, integrated in the centralized Building Management system. It takes information from the protection equipment and from the measuring stations, constantly monitoring different parameters of the installation, including energy consumption. The information collected thus allows decisions to be made and actions to be implemented to keep consumption within the desired limits.
“In Timișoara, we were in the ideal situation, in which the client communicated to us from the very beginning its goals related to energy efficiency and safety, wanting the building’s electrical installations to be on par with a research and development center – very modern and high-performance,” explains Lucian Ene, Sales Director for Switchboards and Contractors, Schneider Electric Romania. “The solution we implemented in Timișoara is effective and efficient, but also very simple to manage and track.”
The powering of the general switchboards and the distribution of electricity inside the two buildings were achieved by Canalis encapsulated busbar solutions. Their particular reliability, proven in over 20 years of implementation in Romania, is strengthened by monitoring the temperature in the contact areas of the busbar sections in the transformer room and in that of the arrivals at the general switchboards and the integration of the information in the Building Management system .
The encapsulated bars have been equipped with temperature sensors – with wireless communication to a data concentrator – which transmit the information into the system and generate pre-alerts and alerts in case of exceeding the preset limits.
This solution, implemented for the first time in Romania, eliminates any risk of damage to the busbar connections due to excessive heating, throughout the duration of the buildings’ use, because the alerts allow maintenance actions to be carried out in a timely manner.
The project took place over 12 months and was carried out with the support of Schneider Electric Romania’s authorized partners: Addict Engineering, part of the Addict Invest group – Design, Chorus Marketing & Distribution – for the encapsulated busbar solution, Eltrex Timișoara – for electrical panels and integration of information from temperature sensors and electrical panels in the building management system and CON-A MEP Sibiu as electrical installation contractor.