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Prefabricated E-house (HV/LV) substations are a booming, fiercely competitive business. I’m talking about applications that range from PV or wind farm boxes to shore connections and data centres. I’m also talking about distribution substations. Not about secondary substations, but the big ones used by utilities and industry that can operate in harsh environments and, when it comes to the oil and gas segment, in explosion-prone conditions.

Yet the only prefab substation standard is the utility-dedicated IEC 62271-202. Its scope is just too narrow. There is clearly a shortfall in international standards. As for local regulations, they are notoriously complex.

Functional analysis reveals objectives behind standards

The company I work for has developed an innovative E-house substation solution that relies on a new approach to standards, regulations, and specifications. It is a modular, easily liftable and transportable E-house building that uses interlocking metal panels covered by a cladding in sandwich panel technology. We tested our technology against the most stringent requirements and building codes of 28 countries. We benchmarked the E-house’s metal structure against the IBC and EC3 building codes before BCA and tested its fire resistance against EN, AS, ASTM and IMO standards.

Our approach is to run functional analyses that give us a checklist of the requirements our technology should meet—structural stability during all life phases, degrees of protection, fire resistance, lifting, and corrosion, etc. In essence, these are all aspects of safety and reliability. But safety and reliability are precisely what lie behind the values and specifications set out in standards, after all.