The Gold Coast Airport Pty Ltd is a dynamic, growing business which has experienced an average annual growth rate in passenger movements of 16 percent over the past five years. With this expansion comes greater energy consumption to service the growth and the airport’s existing oil filled feeder recloser was beginning to show its age. While the unit was upgradeable, parts were becoming more and more difficult to obtain and lockouts due to higher loads and faults meant a newer more flexible option was needed to improve reliability of supply.

“Our main concern was improving the current rating over the old unit but other features like automatically clearing transient faults and data logging and reporting were important considerations too,” said GCAP L Asset Services Manager, Geoff Arnold. “In fact, the unit we chose will service us past our current planned infrastructure upgrades – something we didn’t expect,” he said.

Located only minutes from the Gold Coast CBD and so close to the ocean, GCAP L management wanted a unit which was both suitable to the local conditions and had a low environmental impact potential.

Using latest generation solid dielectric vacuum interrupting technology, a NOJA Power OSM Recloser achieved low environmental impact for the Gold Coast Airport by eliminating the use of oil. The OSM tank and control cubicle are manufactured using stainless steel and the tank bushings are high pollution rated making the unit ideal for coastal applications.

To avoid disruption to the airport’s internal power network, the old recloser was removed and the new unit installed using live line techniques where the 11-kV supply was maintained throughout the installation. “The airport is a busy place and taking power off-line was never an option” said Shane Gorman, Sales Engineer and project coordinator from NOJA Power. Protection settings for the new recloser were designed and programmed beforehand to save time on site and the whole installation was completed in approximately 8 hours.

“It was a complete package” announced GCAPL Asset Services Manager, Geoff Arnold. “NOJA Power manufactured and supplied the equipment, engineered the protection settings, coordinated the installation and provided training for our engineers. We are very satisfied with the result.”