We were hired by  Lundbeck research, at 215 College Road in Paramus, NJ.  The project consisted of removing their existing 500 KW Caterpillar generator, seen here, and installing a new 1500 KW Cummins generator. Because of the size and the weight of the generator we had to higher a crane that required the installation of extra counterweights due to the massive weight of the new generator.

The enclosure was 14′ wide, and 37′ long. The total weight that we had to lift up with this crane was 71 thousand pounds, and then that had to be strategically set in place over the existing conduits stubbed-up out of the new concrete pad to support all the weight of that generator.

The employees of Academy Electric, seen here straightening out all of the lifting straps, because every one of them has to be strategically located so that when we lift this massive weight, everything comes up nice and even. We are now positioning the straps to get them located into the eight pit points that we had to use to pick up the weight of this generator.

The straps are now getting into place, and we’re going to be taking all of the shackles and mounting the straps to the side of the base, so that we can lift it up from the lifting rings and set this generator onto place. Double checking all of the straps, and the extra blocking that we had to put in to protect the strap from the sharp edges on the enclosure, to make sure that nothing happens to the straps that could endanger the safety of the employees of Academy Electric.

As we start to lift, we realize that the center of weight is not really in the center of the lifting points, which made a little bit of problem trying to lift the generator squarely, but we were able to overcome this with our expertise and get the generator up off the trailer without having any damage done to the enclosure.

Now, as we slowly watch every move we make to make sure that we slowly and carefully swing 71 thousand pounds into place onto the concrete pad, and have to line it up strategically with all of the conduit stub-ups, which had very little room for error. We slowly moved the generator inch by inch, to make sure that everything lines up. With this much weight, a very small margin of error, the damage could be catastrophic as we put 71 thousand pounds down onto plastic PVC conduits. Everything had to be perfect.

Now that it’s finally in place, and we’ve measured to make sure that we are square on the pad, because it has to be aesthetically pleasing when we’re done, it’s time to take the blocks out, remove the shackles, and now we can pack up all the equipment that it took to set this generator in place. Cummins Power Generation, and Academy Electric, you want those two names on your job.

The back of our 2000 amp service entrance rated transfer switch, along with the conduits that are stubbed-up in a very tight window. The black conductors that you see here now are the emergency side, which were factory wired between the generator and the transfer switch that’s in the enclosure.

That is the transformer that was feeding the service. We’ve removed the old conductors, rerouted the conduits to the transfer switch, and now we’re pulling in the new conductors. It was five 600 MCM copper conductors per phase for the line and for the load side of the transfer switch. We worked all through the night to minimize the shutdown of power to the customer, so that they could be back in business the next day.

The final wire terminations in the back of the 2000 amp transfer switch with all of the other conductors that we had to add. This was startup day. Powered up the transfer switch, generator is up and running, everything is looking really good, rain cap is up, the engine is running, the project was a success.