National Grid, a subsidiary of Saudi Electricity Company, has devised an ambitious plan to establish four large regional operation centers. Theses centers are strategically distributed throughout the territory supervise and manage critical activities of the electrical grid throughout the country.
At the top of the hierarchy of these control centers is the National Control Center in Riyadh, which has computer links that connect it to the four new regional control centers located in the central, eastern, western and southern regions of the country. It will also establish links with the GCCIA control center at National Grid’s Ghunan substation.
State-of-the-art control center
The National Control Center (NCC) of Riyadh, located in the capital of Saudi Arabia, is a Level III facility distributed over three floors that not only stands out for housing cutting-edge technologies in its facilities, but also stands as a benchmark in corporate image of the organization receiving high-level visits practically every week.
Consequently, our entire team paid special attention to quality, functionality and aesthetics in all project processes: consulting, architecture and selection of material suppliers and infrastructure.
The final design was shown to the client through 360-degree renders and presentations in virtual reality, providing the client with a realistic image and sensation of what the final result of the project would be, in addition to serving as a tool to evaluate ergonomic visualization factors.
Likewise, several visits were carried out to facilities developed by our team for companies in the same sector, taking advantage of the solid relationship with Saudi Electricity Company, a reference client for GESAB, with whom multiple projects have been executed, consolidating the recommendation of our products in all the control room initiatives.
Design, ergonomics and functionality
This project has undergone an extraordinary evolution, beginning with consideration of the control room design even before the building was constructed. This early approach allowed us to fully comply with the ISO 11064 standard, thus combining functionality and aesthetics in an outstanding way.
The main control room has an irregular and organic shape, with an impressive videowall in front of the workstations, which had to be considered when designing and ergonomically distributing the workstations.
The technical furniture, for its part, was designed considering the high volume of equipment to be installed and guaranteeing the absolute comfort of the operators with workstations of almost 3 meters and height adjustment. Therefore, and after exploring numerous versions of the project, the Advantis NG model control console was selected as the optimal solution due to its great power, minimalist and modern design and great capacity for organizing wiring and connections.
A spectacular result
The creation of this control room for National Grid provides the client with advanced tools to make a significant leap in the monitoring, control and management of its assets, as well as in the regional interconnection between its monitoring centers. This advancement translates into a notable improvement in the services provided to the people of Saudi Arabia.
Furthermore, the inauguration of this facility opens the possibility of receiving high-level visits, generating positive results for the reputation and operation of the center.
