Albert Bartlett

Client: Albert Bartlett
Project length: 2 weeks
Project value: £50K
Completion date: September 2022
HF divisions involved: Electrical, Green Energy

Brief project description: Our Green Energy Electricians were contracted to carry out the fitting of two new 200 amp supplies for Albert Bartlett so that they could in turn supply eight Twin 32 amp pedestals that were needed to charge their new fleet refrigerated trailers.

The refrigerated trailers electricity was previously being supplied by a diesel generator and the client was making the switch in order to reduce operating and running costs while lowering their carbon footprint.

Project Challenges: When installing the electrical pedestals, the best practice is to provide the pedestals with a TT earth. This involves insulating the equipment from the distributors earthing system, and creating our own.

Previously, this would have been done by means of earthing rods and a copper electrode which is driven into the ground.

Each rod is approximately 1m long, and to provide an acceptable reading it can mean that multiple rods need to be driven into the ground in order to reach a safe resistance. A stable reading is deemed as anything below 200Ω. For comparison, common readings from the distributor’s earthing system are much lower, <0.3Ω.

For safety, we wanted to get the reading down to as low a reading as possible but also not have to worry about what we may hit when driving rods into the ground.

A new innovation in electrical grounding that is now on the market is something called Condudisc, produced by Earthing Services. This new system is currently the forefront of earthing without the need for fitting rods.

The system requires a small hole (400mm (l) x 400mm (w) x 500mm (d) in which we place the Condudisc with an earth cable then going to the electrical equipment. When tested, we were able to get the readings down to just 8Ω!

We further enhanced the system by installing an additional two Condudiscs for each bank of 4 pedestals and encased the discs in the manufacturer approved Conducrete, another innovation by Earthing Services which improves the reliability of the discs.

As with any new technology, the use of the ConduDisc was a big step to take but has proved to be the best option as we have provided our client with a safe electrical installation with a stable and reliable TT earth. All with reduced installation costs due to this innovative new grounding method.

Earthing using this method is not limited to this type of electrical installation.  It can be used in other applications by HF such as our EV Charger installation work. EV chargers installations can sometimes require the need for a TT earth. Our telecommunications division HF Comms will also benefit from the use of this new grounding method as many of their installations are in remote locations across the UK and their installation TT earth specifications require the reading to be as low as 10 Ω.

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At HF Group, we are a group of world-class companies leading the way in next-generation technologies; and all with a family continuity at management level which is rarely seen.

If you would like to know more about Electric Installation work for Commercial Vehicle Charging and EV Charging Systems for your business, retail car park or other parking facility, please get in touch.