Situated at the heart of London’s Green Enterprise District, the Crystal, a sustainable cities initiative by Siemens, will be an iconic landmark demonstrating Siemens’ commitment to creating sustainable cities. The exciting new building will feature conference facilities, research space and an interactive exhibition.

More than 100,000 visitors are expected every year, including city planners and officials, as well as schoolchildren, graduates and members of the local community. The core aim of the building is to give visitors an opportunity to learn about urban challenges such as climate change and sustainability, and the ways in which a city can evolve to meet them. The building itself, which will also be home to more than 100 Siemens employees, will showcase innovative, energy efficient technologies and demonstrate excellence in sustainable construction through the intelligent introduction of building structure, fabric and services.

Integral to the building’s operations is a bespoke power distribution board, the SIVACON S4, which has been designed in conjunction with Siemens solution partner, ICWPower in Sunderland, to suit the specific applications and requirements of the building.

The first adaptation to the conventional Siemens SIVACON S4 is a change in shape from a traditional straight distribution board to an ‘L’ shaped board. Working with the on-site contractors, the modification will ensure the board fits easily within the building, and that its constituent parts are accessible. This particular SIVACON S4 distribution board has been designed so the incoming device is located to suit the site’s incoming cable and entry points to the room.

As a whole, the building aims to set a benchmark for sustainable construction through the intelligent integration of building structure, fabric and services as a series of co-ordinated active systems working together. This amalgamation of functions also includes the SIVACON S4 distribution board which is fully-intelligent, allowing communication-enabled monitoring and interaction with the building energy management system (BEMS).

Like all the products in the SIVACON S4 range, the board is fitted with high-specification electronic switching air circuit and moulded case circuit breakers. These integral electronic protection units offer greater sensitivity and adjustability, and ensure the devices only trip and hence isolate the respective circuit they feed, in the unlikely event of a fault further downstream of the LV switchboard. In addition to this enhanced protection, the devices are monitored, and can be controlled remotely at a central control PC by the BEMS/Scada, via the auxiliary contacts and motorisation of the devices fitted within the two LV switchboards supplied by ICWPower.

Sustainable construction and energy efficiency are integral to the building, and so the SIVACON S4 distribution board also includes integral power factor correction equipment that optimises the electricity used, therefore reducing costs. In addition to reducing on-site energy consumption, the energy used by the building will be generated from renewable sources. These include solar photovoltaic cells and ground source heat-pumps together with developing technologies such as ‘thermal wheels’ which are used to recover heat energy from air handling systems.

Eric Anderson, UK sales and marketing manager (LV) for the Siemens Low and Medium Voltage division, comments: “Being at the centre of such an innovative project, such as the Crystal, the SIVACON S4 exemplifies the importance of having a fully-intelligent, energy-efficient distribution board at the heart of any high energy-use application.”

Based in the Royal Victoria Docks, near to the Olympic Park, the Crystal will be dedicated to showcasing and promoting green technology. The centre will open in Summer 2012.