2 MW MV/LV distribution design
The PD Gemini building at TU Eindhoven is being renovated and its electrical system redone to current EU standards. I led load analysis and equipment selection across 13,600 m² and five floors, from W/m² estimates to a 2000 kVA transformer.
- Sheet
- 05 of 06
- Title
- 2 MW MV/LV distribution design
- Client
- Royal HaskoningDHV
PD Gemini renovation, TU Eindhoven - Drawn
- Sep 2024 – Jan 2025
- Work done
- Power systems · Load and capacity planning · IEC compliance
- Project type
- Group project, 5 students
- My role
- Project Lead, load analysis and equipment selection
- Status
- DESIGN STUDYnot a built installation
You cannot size a transformer from a floor plan
The brief was clear about the goal, a compliant electrical system for the whole building, and silent about every number needed to get there. What existed was floor plans. What was needed was a grid connection, an MV level, a transformer rating, switchgear, panel positions and a circuit schedule.
The chain between those is unforgiving, because each step compounds. A room misclassified at the start propagates into a W/m² estimate, into a floor total, into a maximum demand figure, into breaker sizing, into panel count, into the size of the room the equipment has to physically fit inside. Errors early are not small later; they are safety hazards or expensive change orders.
And the factors that convert an installed-load estimate into real maximum demand (utilisation factor, power factor, transmission losses) are not something you invent. Getting defensible values was its own task.
From square metres to switchgear, one defensible step at a time
- We turned the floor plans into a spreadsheet per floor, with room number, name, area, likely loads and category, then redrew the plans against a shared colour legend. Making the classification visual is what made it reviewable: a wrong colour on a plan is obvious in a way that a wrong spreadsheet row is not.
- With a W/m² figure per room category, load totals follow per room, per category and per floor, covering lighting, small power and mechanical systems. Mechanical came out as the largest category, which is exactly the number the mechanical team was supposed to supply and did not.
- Utilisation factor, power factor and transmission losses convert estimated load into maximum demand in kW and then kVA. We did not pick these; our coach pointed us at the relevant IEC standards and we took defensible values from them. That is the only way the resulting transformer rating means anything.
- Maximum and nominal current on the LV side drive breaker and panel sizing; on the MV side they size the switchgear and set the grid connection and MV voltage level. Short-circuit calculation follows IEC 60909.
- Panel placement met physical reality repeatedly. LV sub-panels cap at 50 circuits each and are positioned for feeder and branch cable length and for maintenance access. The ground floor had no room for its panel, so it sits in the basement; the second floor took two panels to keep branch runs short; the third floor got a dedicated panel for mechanical loads. We proposed floor layout changes where nothing else would fit.
- In the main LV room, switchgear, UPS and busbars are arranged for space, cable routing and maintenance access, with the transformer in a corner behind a barrier so it is not reachable by unauthorised people. The block diagram separates critical from non-critical loads, shows generator and UPS ties, and applies IEC 62439 redundancy thinking with breakers and a bypass.
| Main transformer | 2000 kVA | 20 kV / 400 V, Dyn5 |
|---|---|---|
| MV switchgear | 20 kV, 125 A | vacuum circuit breaker |
| Building area | 13 600 m² | five floors |
| LV sub-panels | ≤ 50 circuits | per panel |
| Standards | IEC 60364 / 60909 / 62439 | installations, short-circuit, redundancy |
A complete, compliant design package, delivered on time
| 2000 kVA | transformer specified, 20 kV/400 V Dyn5 |
|---|---|
| 13 600 m² | load-analysed floor by floor, room by room |
| 5 | floors of panel placement, with layout changes proposed |
| Weekly | documented and presented to the client throughout |
Every deliverable in the brief was completed inside the September-to-January window: requirements analysis, load calculation, capacity planning, equipment layout, main LV room layout, equipment selection and the MV/LV block diagram, documented and presented weekly, with safety and IEC compliance carried through rather than checked at the end.
The instructive part was the missing mechanical loads. The mechanical team never delivered the values we needed, and mechanical was the single largest load category. We estimated them from comparable projects with our coach's input and kept going, flagging the assumption rather than hiding it. That is the second project where an undelivered dependency was the critical-path risk, and it is why I now plan a fallback for external inputs before I need one.
Book a call
Happy to talk about a graduation internship, a vacancy, or a project you want a second opinion on. Twenty minutes is usually enough to work out whether it is worth a longer conversation.
- Typical length
- 20 to 30 minutes
- Time zone
- Central European Time, Arnhem
- Languages
- English, Hindi
- Usually free
- Weekday evenings and most of the weekend
Looking for a graduation internship from February 2027.
Power electronics, embedded hardware, renewable energy or power systems. I am equally happy writing the firmware and tooling around them. Based in Arnhem, open to relocating in the Netherlands.
- Phone
- +31 6 8515 8402
- linkedin.com/in/tanishq-bhaiji
- Based in
- Arnhem, Netherlands
- Available
- Graduation internship from Feb 2027