Michael Wall Engineering, Inc. provides on-going electrical engineering support for the ever-increasing demands of the UCSD SDSC facility. The SDSC is a National Science Foundation funded facility and is an international leader in research to the fields of geosciences, bioscience, data management, grid computing and visualization.

Michael Wall Engineering, Inc. acted as the prime consultant for this project coordinating architectural, structural, mechanical and plumbing. Great constraints were placed on the design team due to the limited space in the existing facility. Coordination of the removal and transition of loads from one existing substation onto two other existing substations in the facility was required. Two new rooms were constructed to house the new equipment that included new air handling units to cool the UPS units.

Upgrades to the electrical system include a new 2.0MW substation with integral bypass isolation, closed transition, automatic transfer switch and provisions for a new 2.0MW generator. SCADA monitoring was provided to the new substation for remote monitoring at the central utilities plant. This substation feeds a system sized for five (5) 500kVA UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) modules running in parallel for redundancy.

Additional upgrades also included a new 1500kVA substation transformer including Load Interrupter Switch, and secondary distribution equipment to replace the existing 500kVA Substation BDS. It was necessary to relocate the existing loads from the BDS to existing substation MDS, as well as to review the new short circuit currents and device trip settings. New computer room distribution switchgear includes two (2) 2000A 208Y/120V distribution boards, each with a 2000A plug-in overhead bus duct. Also included were new distribution panels and feeders for approximately 2000A of 208Y/120V capacity. As-built documentation was created for the entire electrical distribution system for the existing SDSC building.