Marshall-Tufflex ‘connects’ Broadcasting House project
The 12-storey extension to the BBC’s Broadcasting House in London, the second phase of an extensive redevelopment project, will feature a bespoke power-distribution system designed and prefabricated by Marshall-Tufflex and made in its Sussex factory. The system enables work to be carried out quickly, and the new system is compatible with the one already installed by Marshall-Tufflex in the original Broadcasting House as part of the shift to digital broadcasting.
The new installation is based around the MT32 power-distribution system based on plug-and-play power connection to eliminate hard wiring on site by electrical contractor Phoenix Electrical.
The modular system is delivered to site in cable-management ‘bays’, complete with prewired cable sets marked with circuitry and ready to feed into distribution boards. It follows Marshall-Tufflex’s development of a bespoke modular power-distribution system installed during the modernisation and digital upgrade of Broadcasting House.
The system has gone into the initial fit-out of the central apparatus area and local apparatus rooms. The initial central apparatus area also has required 81 km of power cabling, 2000 sockets and 32 prewired units contained within 513 ‘bays’ supplied by MT. A further 322 ‘bays’ are being installed throughout the buildings.
‘Bays’ above the ceiling are constructed from a combination of MT’s PVC-U Maxi Trunking and Mono 10 with specialised Cee-Norm sockets.
The complexity of the vast amounts of circuitry has necessitated the building of extra-large containment units with the necessary headroom. Some are 18 m long with a 150 mm x 150 mm containment capacity. A large number of sockets and cables in relatively short spaces have also been addressed by the cable-management solution.
