Electricity supply quality for large-scale arts complex

Queensland's new cultural masterpiece, the $277 million Millennium Art project at the Cultural Centre on Brisbane's South Bank, included the construction of the new Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, the redevelopment of the State Library of Queensland, as well as a new entrance and foyer for the Queensland Museum, and recreational and outdoor spaces which overlook and engage the Brisbane River. The gallery is the largest art museum in Australia solely dedicated to modern and contemporary art.

The power generation team at Cummins Brisbane operations played a key role in the project by working with contractors to ensure the publicly accessible cultural and arts complex and its valuable collections would have a reliable supply of electric power.

Temperature and humidity control are vital for preserving the sensitive art and historical collections that are on display in both the library and the art gallery, and these environmental control systems depend on reliable electric power to ensure they are always functioning and controlling the environment. In view of the importance and sensitivity of the items in these exhibitions, the Queensland Cultural Centre needed a supplier that could guarantee there would be no loss of power at any time.

The Cummins Power Generation team provided valuable insight into reliable, long-term power availability, resulting in critical changes to the original project scope. The initial system design for the Millennium Arts Project building called for the three existing standby generators, which had been in place for around 30 years, to be supplemented by one additional generator set. However, Cummins Power Generation and Bovis Lend Lease, the building contractor on the project, reviewed the requirement outlined in the specification and jointly came to the conclusion that there was a smarter way to deliver the standby power protection that the centre desired.

Together, Cummins and Bovis Lend Lease recommended an all new digitally controlled emergency power system that would provide more power than the older system and have a useful life of at least 25 years.

The building contractor was confident Cummins Power Generation could best deliver the system design and equipment for the centre's needs. Senior project engineer (electrical) for Bovis Lend Lease in Queensland, Des Dykes said: "Cummins Power Generation has a lot of skill sets we knew would be vital to this project. From our previous experience with them in power generation projects, we knew them to be a very focused organisation".

The new backup power system is comprised of three Cummins Power Generation generator sets and PowerCommand digital paralleling equipment. A Cummins Power Generation MC300 digital master control system is used to operate, monitor and control the 1675 kVA generator sets which are powered by Cummins 50 L low-emissions diesel engines.

The Cummins Power Generation team removed the old generator sets and installed the new, state-of-the-art emergency power system with no loss of power at any time. In addition to the three new generator sets, Cummins Power Generation supplied the network control and power switching system that allows individual loads to be turned on and off in the various buildings throughout the site.

With the assurance of its new emergency power system, the Queensland Cultural Centre can welcome visitors with confidence. The library and art gallery can also be confident that its temperature and humidity sensitive collections will be protected due to a reliable supply of electric power.

The fact that Cummins Power Generation has 80 years of experience in increasing the availability and reliability of electric power all around the world in many varied and critical applications gave both the builder and the client the confidence to engage Cummins for this highly sensitive project and to acknowledge and consider their suggestions on system design and configuration of the backup power system.