Yeah it's not legal. I think they are getting away with it here as it is mostly electrical components stored in the electrical room. Which the building is still under construction and the electricians need a place to store their stuff where the kids won't mess with it. I have seen in some code rules that state service areas cannot be used for storage except for maintenance equipment for the equipment there which I wouldn't think this would fall under that category but maybe it did.
Yes they are. Don’t know where this is but in US 3ft of clearance in front of any panel and no blockages on either side. The side clearance is to provide an escape route either direction in case of catastrophic failure - exploding gear.
@@joebledsoe257 I believe it is 1 m for us as well if it's under 600 V or 1200 A but if it's 1200 A or 600 V or both it needs 2 or 3 m clearance can't remember which one
All newer (10y) low-rise hydraulic elevators have their own battery back up. It lowers the car to it's lowest stop, and opens the doors. It then goes inactive till utility power comes back.
my school had none of this, no transfer switches, pv, generators, backups, or anything my my school was old school, resistive heaters up in the drop ceiling, mini splits here and there and natural gas fired hydronic for one of the main blocks, old school radiators in the classrooms
Not in this size. Smaller, single phase generators are commonly rated at unity power factor, but larger 3 phase generators are rated at a .8 power factor.
@@topher8634 I agree it is a three phase generator. You can see that from the transfer switch display. I am saying that the generator is rated in KW, not KVA. If the sticker on the side says 250, that's 250 KW, or 312 KVA
That's wild...I remember middle school a few power outages we got to go home early and teachers would have flashlight because the generators were supposedly reserved for the kitchen and coolers.
I know it's emergency service only but I find it amazing that all three facilities are only pulling 20 KW! Looks like the shoulder season as far as heating/cooling goes but such a tremendous difference from older buildings.
@@nics-systems-electric Very true, that must make sizing a real pain... if that thing ran for so long at - what - 8% load? - it'll probably start wetstacking I'm thinking of my old high school... 20KW would probably be the lighting for a single floor of a single wing or like, the gym, lol
@@nics-systems-electric You know I haven't seen wet stacking in years. Sure back in the day when we had a lot of 2 stroke Detroit diesels, but modern diesels with their much higher injection pressures and better atomization seem to be making it a thing of the past
I thought I needed to jump in the truck when I saw this video title.I’ve been retired nearly nine years from being the electrician for a school district.Still ready to respond but nobody calls. The frequent power outages make me aware of the deterioration of the power infrastructure due to deregulation in Texas.Our campuses were more or less state of art and the utility repair crews were quick to respond. A serious weakness was that all the phones were on a computer which was not ups protected. I put them on sub panels with transfer switches so at least the staff could communicate with parents. That seems so stone aged now. The off-grid solar systems now available operated in ups mode would keep that most important function virtually seamless.
My grandfather was the chief electrician for Rock center for a while and was an electrician there for a very long time, quite a while ago. he passed away a few weeks ago at 88 years old, he was the same way up until maybe 2-3 years ago when his health started to decline
I hear you on the phones. I remember when my high school switched from a dedicated phone system to a VoIP system on the regular computer network. I distinctly remember that this left the phones dead during power failures. I _think_ the outage I remember was after they upgraded the network equipment. In hindsight it would've been a good idea for them to put the data equipment on UPSes during the network upgrade.
in britain we have the national grid. it's fairly heavily regulated. we almost never have power cuts, especially in populated areas like where i am. very rare to see generator backup at sites that aren't safety critical or commercially important, hospitals, refrigerated stock etc...
Hey Nic at 6:30 in, what was that leaking down in the Ges. fan area ? Hopefully not Fuel, but, I have no idea what pipes are going in what direction in that Gen. housing. you may want to look into that, if that was not water dripping down!
Just rain water it was dry before I open the door there is negative pressure in the enclosure so any water on the surface or nearby running down will be pulled in
Nic I have a question at the intro the fire alarm system outside did the fire alarms go off because it said signals silenced or was it silenced when having trouble issue
I just found your channel, so I don't know much about you, but I'm curious if you're a journeyman electrician? I've been a cable guy for 17 years and want to get out of it. I was recently at a guys house who retired from a power generation position at the phone company, but went back on contract. I kinda think I'd like to get into this side of the industry, but I don't know what qualifications I'd need. Thanks
I'm not a journeyman I'm only 17 so I'm just a apprentice still. where I am it's a four year apprenticeship with eight weeks of in school per year and I think it's 800 hours per year of fieldwork which is pretty obtainable
Cool. I do have one question if the light switches don't work how do you do load shedding without having to have a computer there? Yeah elevators probably should begin back up if they have a elevator they probably have a second floor that has to be handicap assessable so they're basically stuck up there until the power comes back on or somebody carries them down the stairs.
You just don't turn the lights off until utility powered is restored which is how it's supposed to be because you shouldn't be able to turn off your emergency lighting
Crazy the amount of generators being used in the US, living in Sweden everything is connected to the general grid. Feels so strange to use a generator and diesel for electricity, any good reasons for it?
This is Canada and we don't. This was a power outage it's an emergency generator that keeps the essential life safety equipment going when the power is out otherwise the building cannot legally be occupied it Hass to have back up systems for safety.
i wish the US did this with the new scools maybe some states do but mine dosent theres multiple new schools none of them have solar of backup generators if the power goes out they send the students home cus they cant have school open when theres no power due to state law our schools dont have air conditoning or elevators even wow thats a hella nice school
@@grandinosour this is in canada to so they may have year around school summer and winter i know some states in the US do so in that case AC would be a necessitry for the hot summers but in my state they are pretty cheap the school dosent even own its own busses like most do they lease them from anouther company so if that company wich is the only company in the town i grew up in so say they decide they arent sending there drivers out cus of a bad snow storm and the school distrect dosent want to shut down they have no choice if the tr5ansit system says they arent sending busses so its an intresting thing butr im still jelous my school had no backup systems and the heat constantly broke and it would hit like 95 dagrees
From the way it looks, these 2 schools are metered on the primary lines, am i right? Basically the schools own and are responsible for the maintenance of the transformers. Lots of good stuff here. I love working with electrical switch gear.
If you leave load bank switch on, whatever the generator is backing up will not have access to the generators power. That switch is for connecting a giant "toaster" and testing the generator to see if it will sustain it's rated capacity. The breakers are mechanically interlocked.
Some sites have permant load banks installed, some have a CT to maintain generator at 50% load during power outage. the other permanant load banks use contacts in transfer switch so if it rolls to emergency the load bank get's dumped if it was running.
Why does a system that apparently works correctly warrant a service call, much less sending two techs out? Secondly and perhaps I missed it but does such an advanced system allow you to connect remotely to diagnose and troubleshoot? In this case you would have been able to see utility power was down and not even had to visit the site.
It doesn't need a service call. there never was a service call. we were just going back to the shop at the end of the day and thought it would be good to see the new school that we had never got to see in a power outage. it's good to have a understanding of what is powered during a power failure and see how the system operates for any future outages or troubleshooting. it was only an extra 15 minutes at the end of the day which why not spend it to familiarize yourself with a system a little better that you hadn't got to see before. The solar system and lighting control system would indicate power failure as well as the fire alarm monitoring generator running condition.
@@nics-systems-electric We are always getting pestered to manage billable time properly since some customers call every time they fart. Given the issues you explained, makes good sense and will help you troubleshoot when it does malfunction. Thanks for the interesting content.
i find it cool that certain lights are able to shut off when on generator power. Are they wired separately or are they using a computer to shut off a certain amount?
50% of the hallway lighting and all stairwell lighting around 30% lighting in the gym and shops and outdoor wall packs over top of exit doors can't really do a tour as you never know when the power will go out
No the generator creates power from the diesel engine. Solar system shuts down during a power failure. The solar system cannot handle the load and does not go through transfer switches.
Why is there a ladder blocking access to a panel? Why is there a table in front of a disconnect? I’m an inspector and I would have failed that in a heartbeat!
@@patstrains7185 don't get me started with it, I fully agree. I'm just saying that might be why they're letting it slide. As most under construction facilities you will find that here. Not sure why they think that it's OK to not be able to get access to equipment.
You do the best videos I have been wanting to see you because I’m am a fire alarm expert to and I have been wanting to pull a pull station for a fire drill
@@NutterOneGeoff yeah more than just the block as there is a pump circulates the warm coolant through the entire system through the engine block and turbo charger as well as radiator the whole cooling loop
It's because it can't be synchronized apparently. As well as in theory not that it would ever happen but the solar could produce power and give it back to the power company which you can't give power back to a generator
I take it these schools are in Canada? Anyway, in the US, any grid-tied PV system will automatically shutdown during a grid electrical outage. The reason for this is in case an electric utility person is working on a power line which is thought to be non-energized, will not be electrocuted if an operating PV inverter is feeding power back into the utility.
@@djm5ki use hybrid solar power so that it runs 24/7 even during outages i have used it in a magnitude 7.2 earthquake and also a typhoon before works like a charm
@@djm5k Yes it is the same here. One could install the inverters downstream of the transfer switch to get around that and use power locally, but like he said, excess power couldn't just flow out to the grid, it would risk turning the generator into a massive motor and that would be bad
You can't use solar for backup power unless you have batteries. Solar that is used solely to offset grid use/sellback to the grid cannot be used for backup power because it isn't a guaranteed power source without batteries.
With LED lighting there is little reason why all the lighting in the building can't be on generator. I mean go a little larger if you have to just to allow normal learning to continue.
@@nics-systems-electric some of the defibrillators I have used for the last few years are battery-powered and dock into wall chargers to always enable fast usage. Most fleet-spec defibrillators have GPS + Wi-Fi and some models add 4G cellular connectivity for managing battery life, errors, failures, locations, etc. My alma mater school has five defibrillators and my alma mater university has at least one defibrillator in every building and in some cases one on each floor (totalling hundreds). In the UK, we have the Save A Life app which shows thousands of defibrillators across the country; some are located in converted old public phone boxes.
Yeah tell me about it it's not supposed to be used for storage at all. I think they are getting away with it because it's a brand new build still under construction still not right though. Not even so much a fire hazard but it's supposed to be accessible quickly in an emergency. One of the main reasons they aren't supposed to be used for storage is for egress in the event of a arc flash or failure. Definitely not right.
Also after watching this. I got to thinking. Why didn't they just purchase 2 generators, and have one for the elementary school, and one for the middle school? This way they could power way more then they are now with just one generator. It it were me, id want the whole school to be powered like there was never an outage. I guess its more a money issue, and a school is only used a short period of the day and year. I used to work with a friend that was a maintenance guy at a hospital. We had 3 gensets. One was for the central chiller, and boiler plant. I believe it was a kohler, it powered the Trane chiller, and the lochinvar boilers we had. The other 2 gensets were made by Caterpillar the big bold yellow color ones. These 2 powered the whole hospital. When there was a power outage, they woukd kick on one by one. I dont remember how many Kws they were, but they were twice the size of the one here in this video. These generators were multi fuel, they could run either off natural gas or diesel. I cant remember if we had a diesel tank, but you could go into the program computer had to have a password, and you could switch from either nat gas or diesel. I think we had both fuels, and we just ran off natural gas, but had the option to switch over to the diesel should something happen to the natural gas service, so the diesel was a back up fuel. What was cool is these gensets were able to power the whole 180 bed hospital, and everything in it. You would never know that there was a power outage once both generators were up and running. We even had several elevators all were traction type, and all were able to operate as tbey did on utility power. I remember these generators would do a self test every so often to ensure all is well with them. I remember being by them, and it started, and it scared me lol as i was not expecting it. So cool this kind of stuff.
Two generators wouldn't really make a difference you could if needed get just one generator large enough for the whole property but it would be unnecessary as it's only needing to do emergency loads. so the one they have is already plenty. Two generators also means double the testing that Hass to be done and two more generators to fill up and test it's simpler to have one larger one than multiple smaller generators. You would need a 960 KW generator to run the whole service.
Near me there is an abandoned office building that used to be the headquarters of a large computer company. There are 2 CAT generators, one smaller, older one powered by a 1693, and a huge one powered by a 3500 series. The 3500 series one is large enough that I can open the door and walk around inside it around the engine. Has an Eaton 2000 amp breaker on the output, largest breaker I have seen that still has a toggle switch and not a pump handle and buttons. Both generators are in nearly brand new condition and I have actually started the one with the 3500 on a couple occasions (brought a couple of jump packs with me and it started right up). Crazy they have just been left there for decades at this point.
I was at a hospital doing communications work on their radio system when they kicked in the generators for their monthly tests. The were some of the largest Cat gen sets I have ever seen. The odd thing is that the personnel working in the gen room were working with protective headsets with additional earplugs under the muffs. But you could feel the thumping in you chest from the brute force of these huge engines. Time in the room was limited to 10 minutes in and 10 out for safety.
@@Subgunman hospitals definitely have some pretty cool set ups. Ours has three cat 1500 KW diesels. The most impressive part though is the company that does our school generators was called there to make them start faster after the original install could not get them starting under 20 seconds or so. but they've now got them started all three fully synchronized with each other and transferred over in eight seconds. which is impressive for that size generator powered by a V 12 diesel. However once buildings been powered off emergency power for 10 minutes or so the third generator will shut down it is just there as a back up they only need two.
@@nics-systems-electricAll three started and synchronized in 8 seconds? Wow, that's quite fast! Any idea what their changes entailed? Increased heater temp and air start?
I'd say it isn't technically not emergency power though as they don't have an emergency transfer switch only a back up but you could still throw the lights on there and have battery emergency lights maybe
It seems like a waste of backup power to energize building exterior Wallpack lighting during daylight hours. You would think emergency Wallpack fixtures would have an in-line photocell to keep the light off when there is adequate daylight. If there are only a handful of emergency exterior fixtures, it probably wouldn’t matter much, since photocells draw a small amount of power continuously. Emergency exterior lighting is only required in paths of safe egress from a building to some end point so people can leave a building safely at night.
Only happened to me in primary school and my first secondary school, the second one flickered once and never went out fully, College I believe never had a power cut....ever.
At my school the power flickered and the emergency lights kicked in but most of them are replaced with LED ones but I did not get a chance to see them operating
I don't knouw how we can do emergency light generator without Diesel because you knouw some people are in neuw vibe 《Buy electric car》 but in case of power outage i don't knouw how we can charge vehicule... and of course everything work in electricity grid or out grid in some case Diesel generator but people (ecolos and activist) want eliminate thermic engines Diesel and other... Good Luck... but yeah anyway good video and i guess the system of emergency light in school on video i believe is nice. Greetings from Portugal to Canada 🇪🇺🇵🇹🤝🏻🇨🇦
this is interesting i understand why they would not use the solar because of the synchronization issue however, you would think there would be a way with today’s technology to solve that
Because you can't be putting power back into the grid. It could kill a lineman working on restoring power same reason your generator has to have a transfer switch and can't backfeed
@@nics-systems-electric definitely understand i was just saying that you would think that they would have a transfer switch available today that would allow the use of solar power and generator power simultaneously for different scenarios say lights can be run on solar and and your biggest loads can go on the generator its just interesting to think it hasn’t been done yet
@@mydogpeaches1 the first problem is if the solar is producing more energy than needed it can't go back into the generator. And the other problem is solar panels are not listed as a backup power source as they will not run at in the dark. and their output is affected by weather conditions so they are not a reliable power source they are only there to reduce power consumption from your regular day-to-day electrical load
@@nics-systems-electric Some solar inverters can use current clamps to automatically reduce their output to less than the supplied load. While they probably could have done that here it would add more points of failure. If the load sensing fails it could take down the generator.
I was surprised that the generator didn't have an LCD to tell you the fuel level, etc, like the one at your high school and the Katolite at the elementary school, unless that small display showing the engine temperature and oil pressure does. Still, you have to manually tell it to do so.
If there is solar power why not have a battery backup system primarily (even say for lighting) and when that runs low switch to diesel power? Seems somewhat pointless having solar panels if you're not going to utilise them in the event of a power outage.
Because the solar panels are not powerful enough they can only provide small amounts of power to slightly decrease the regular day-to-day demand. They are not listed as a back up supply as they cannot operate at night and are less effective depending on weather conditions. Therefore they are not a reliable source. You can't mess around when you are running emergency lighting and elevators etc.
@@nics-systems-electric couldn't they be used to keep a battery storage system charged in some way though? When the battery is charged the panels send power to the grid, when utility power fails the panels charge the batteries for emergency lighting only until such time as there is a requirement to power the lighting from the generator. At that point the generator is already on so just another subsystem to determine the State of charge of the battery system for the lighting and switch over to the generator. Then use the panels to charge the batteries again until 100% charged and utility power is restored. Right now the panels are useless in the event of a utility power failure, I get that you wouldn't necessarily run elevators or HVAC from them, but lighting shouldn't be impossible.
@@CoolSteve08 then you would require additional transfer switches as now you have multiple back up sources which would not only be more expensive but would be a lot more complicated all that for a underpowered solar system that wouldn't run that long anyways we don't use battery storage that would have to be a whole additional system and it's not justifiable when you don't get that much power out of it and batteries would require maintenance and replacement eventually
@@stargazer7644 Initial cost yes but inverters don't need maintenance. Lead acid batteries would often need frequent replacement (and sometimes watering) but AFAIK modern systems are longer-lasting lithium based chemistries.
Yeah I know right. I think they are getting away with it on these ones because they are brand new still partly under construction so the Sparkys need somewhere to work and keep their stuff where the kids won't mess with it. It should be cleaned up once they are all done I would hope.
Why did you get called out to the schools? There was an outage and the emergency power failover worked as expected. “Oh no our power is out and our generator is working! We better call an electrician, definitely don’t need to call Ergon.”
No we didn't get called we were just heading back to the shop at the end of the day and we figured we would check it out as we hadn't got to see these schools yet during power failure. therefore we could get a better idea of how they operate during power failure and see how it runs. Just good to have that information for any troubleshooting in the future.
kinda weird that schools have backup power. seems kinda unneccesary, my high school doesn't have a generator or battery. we have photovoltaics but they dont have a scrubber. if our power goes out we just move on with learning just without internet access
@@KieranMahoney your other option is emergency lighting battery powered which four large buildings is expensive and time-consuming to maintain. And many buildings require smoke control systems that need to be operational during a power failure such as my high school. You also cannot operate elevators without power. Many of these schools are designed to be emergency community shelters and if you just have battery backup systems they are only rated for 30 minutes after that you cannot legally occupy the building.
@@KieranMahoneySchools are public buildings and those are generally shelter locations in event of emergencies. You need emergency power in a shelter location.
Because this is Canada we don't use it unless we have specific 480 equipment from US or at the shipyards where lots of the ships need to 480 V otherwise we are 600/347
@@fanplant 600 V insulation is fine because it's not 600 V on any given wire it's 347 just 600 between just like you don't have 480 on any wire you would have that between only 277 on the actual conductor
@@nics-systems-electric thanks, I'm not sure what I was thinking about. In the subway they use 1000v wire but it's 630v DC and even if it was less they still overkill everything.
@@fanplant if it's 630 V on the one conductor then yes you would have to go up to 1000 V insulation because. It's just like you have 240 line to line in a house but only 120 V on each conductor.
Why do you act like you don’t know what you’re doing? Y’all keep running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I’m sure y’all have been to all the schools and know how they all work. I’m sure the fire department knows more. In fact they have to.
Not quite sure what you're talking about, or if you know what you're talking about either. Not sure how walking around a building is "like a chicken with its head cut off " walking through a building during power failure is how you find when the systems are operating to see how things are working. Pretty simple concept. And the fire department doesn't usually get training on electrical distribution for every building.
@@D4NS80 the number marked on the side of the unit is referring to the KW making this a 250 KW same as the nameplate. the kVA will be a higher number at 313kVA
