B513 Planning Meeting, 25th July 2002

Present:           Tony Cass, Anne Funken, Jose Miranda-Vizuete, Dave Underhill

1.             Previous Minutes

  1. The previous minutes were updated with various corrections from Anne.

2.             Substation

  1. Gutor have still not provided any information about the heat load of their UPS equipment. Anne has given them a deadline of July 31st to provide this.
  2. Similarly, Anne still needs further input on the hvac loads and the type of power required (normal, assured, secure). This is being followed up with ST/CV.
  1. The electrical plan will be prepared by Anne by the end of August. From this Nigel will prepare plans to be sent to the bureau d’etude. Preparation of the final design documents can be expected to take until the end of October.
  2. Unfortunately, a review of the project has suggested that a tender might be necessary for the civil engineering work. Fortunately, we can use an existing market survey but, if this is the case, the tender cannot be sent out until the design documents have been finalised, so early November at the earliest. A start date in 2002 would thus be ruled out. Work could perhaps start in February and continue until July.
  3. A switchover date in early 2004 (before the PS startup)  is still desirable—i.e. before any significant addition of equipment. The switchover must be done without any major interruption, although a power cut of 4-6 hours would be acceptable given that this would not affect equipment installed in the vault.
  4. Anne asked again about any phasing of UPS capacity. Tony considered that assuming the load today is 800kW, UPS capacity could be phased as
    1. 1.2MW by end 2004,
    2. 1.6MW by end 2006 and
    3. 2MW by end 2007.
  5. However, Tony emphasised that the upgrade work is being financed by Phase 1 of the LCG project and so no funding is available after 2005[1]. In principle, ST should provide a contribution in respect of equipment that would normally need to be replaced before LHC startup. The extent of this contribution remains to be assessed, but may not be more than the costs for two low voltage switchboards (around 150KCHF).
  6. There was some discussion about whether or not to announce a tender for UPS equipment at the September FC. We do not yet know if this is needed, but delaying the announcement until December means the adjudication could not be before the September 2003 Finance Committee, leaving little time for installation before the 2004 PS startup. Anne will discuss this within ST/EL.
  7. All other required equipment is covered by contracts, apart from the air conditioning. The estimated cost for the air conditioning equipment, though, is below 200kCHF so no tender is required, just a price enquiry.
  8. After the last meeting, Jukka provided an estimate of the rate of temperature rise for 100kW of equipment in the machine room and the vault without air conditioning. In the machine room, it would take almost 2 hours (110 minutes) for the temperature to reach 40C, but this level would be reached in the vault within 40 minutes. However, as the air conditioning units in the vault are rated at 80kW, powering just one unit from the critical load UPS would maintain the tempreature within acceptable levels even for a 2 hour lifetime of the UPS batteries. The extra load on 1 unit should be acceptable, but this arrangement would require a change to the current design as no provision has been made to power any units from a UPS.

3.             Machine Room Upgrade

  1. The basic requirement for the electrical distribution system in the machine room is that this should not be the limiting factor for machine installation. The available power density should therefore be at least 1.5kW/m2 (the level of the air conditioning capacity) spread evenly across the room. Assuming a 2m wide technical zone around the walls, the usable area is approximately 1200m2, and so the total power available would be 1.8MW. Provision should be made for a further 200kW to be supplied to the Barn, but final planning for this area should await clarification of the nature of the load (e.g. PC equipment or a control room).
  1. IT has no particular constraints on the layout of the normabarres. It is clearly sensible, though, to reuse as much of the existing system as possible so the majority of the normabarres would be aligned parallel to the barn wall. IT will have to take account of this when installing equipment in order to ensure that all services are aligned with the power distribution.
  2. Installation should start in the area in front of the operators box from mid-2003. No problems are foreseen with this timetable as all equipment is covered by existing contracts. Anne should define the precise PDUs to be replaced in this first stage so that IT can ensure that all the affected systems are moved to the vault.

4.             AOB

  1. Next meeting: 14:00 on Thursday 8th August.

1.        [1] Tony discussed finance issues with IT management after the meeting. There may be a possibility of funding for infrastructure upgrade after the end of LCG phase 1 and so UPS phasing should not be ruled out.