Electrical Services
Electrical installation
A well-engineered installation is safe, compliant, easy to maintain and ready to grow with your site. Our in-house electrical engineers, designers and electricians take it from load assessment and design through installation, testing and certification, to as-built documentation.
- Sectors
- Commercial, residential, industrial
- Designed by
- In-house electrical engineers
- Built to
- SANS 10142-1
- Finished with
- CoC and as-built drawings
What a good installation gives you
Most electrical problems on a site trace back to how the installation was designed and built: breakers that trip for no obvious reason, cables that run hot, a generator that cannot carry the load, or a DB with no room left for the next expansion.
An installation designed around your actual load, built to SANS 10142-1 and properly documented avoids those problems from the start. The result is a safe, reliable supply, a CoC that is straightforward to issue, and an installation your own staff and future contractors can understand and maintain.
How an installation runs
- 01Brief and load assessmentWe establish what the installation must supply, now and in future: equipment, operating hours and planned expansion. On existing sites, load logging shows the real maximum demand.
- 02DesignOur engineers size the supply, cables and protection, lay out the distribution boards and switchgear, and design the earthing, surge protection and any standby supply.
- 03Approvals and supply applicationWhere a new connection or a larger supply is needed, we prepare the application to the municipality or Eskom. Embedded generation such as solar PV is registered with the supply authority as well.
- 04InstallationContainment and cable routes first, then cabling, distribution boards and switchgear, followed by the final connection of outlets, lighting and equipment.
- 05Testing and CoCThe installation is inspected and tested to SANS 10142-1, and a registered person issues the Certificate of Compliance and test report.
- 06HandoverYou receive as-built drawings, single-line diagrams, circuit charts, the CoC and equipment documentation, with the installation explained to the people who will run it.
The engineering behind it
The terms you will see in a design, and why each one matters.
Maximum demand
The highest load the installation will draw at once. Not everything runs together, so the design applies diversity rather than adding up every nameplate, which avoids both undersized and oversized supplies.
Cable sizing and voltage drop
Each cable is sized for the current it carries, the way it is installed and its length. Long runs lose voltage along the way, so cables are sized to keep the voltage at the equipment within the limits SANS 10142-1 allows.
Protection and discrimination
Circuit breakers, fuses and earth leakage units protect people and cables. Discrimination, also called selectivity, means the breaker closest to a fault trips first, so one faulty circuit does not shut down a whole building.
Earthing and bonding
The earthing system gives fault current a safe path so protection can operate. Bonding connects exposed metalwork to earth, so it cannot become live during a fault.
Lightning and surge protection
Lightning protection intercepts direct strikes on a structure. Surge protection devices in the DBs limit the overvoltages that lightning and switching events send along the cables, protecting the equipment connected to them.
Harmonics
Variable speed drives, LED drivers, computers and inverters distort the supply waveform. These harmonics can overheat neutrals and transformers and cause nuisance tripping, so we measure them with a power analysis and design around them.
What an installation can include
Distribution boards and switchgear
Main and sub-distribution boards, switchgear and switch rooms, laid out with space and capacity for future circuits.
Power and lighting circuits
Socket outlets, dedicated equipment circuits and lighting, indoor and outdoor.
Metering
Switchboard and metering alterations, including sub-metering so individual tenants, departments or processes can be measured.
Standby generators
Generator installation with a changeover switch, manual or automatic, that transfers the selected loads safely when the supply fails and back again when it returns.
UPS
Uninterrupted power supply for loads that cannot tolerate even a short interruption, such as servers, tills and control systems.
Exit and emergency lighting
Emergency luminaires and illuminated exit signs that light the escape routes when the normal supply fails.
MCCs and control systems
Motor control centres, the switchboards that house the starters, drives and protection for motors, together with the control and instrumentation wiring that runs an industrial process.
Energy management and power audits
Logging how and when a site uses power, then using energy management systems to control demand and reduce waste.
Scope of work by sector
Commercial
- Electrical construction
- Switchboard and metering alterations
- Standby generators
- Uninterrupted power supply (UPS)
- Energy management systems, power audits and power installation
- Exit and emergency lighting
- 24/7 maintenance and servicing
Residential
- Installation of electrical power and lighting systems and switchboards
- Electrical installations of new residential houses and mass social-housing projects
- Property management: electrical maintenance and new installations
- Electrical compliance, testing and certification
- 24/7 emergency breakdown service
Industrial
- Electrical and instrumentation (E&I) works
- Installation of switchgear and control systems
- Installation of switch rooms and MCCs
- Lightning protection
- Surge and overvoltage protection
- Power analysis for harmonics
- Breakdown assistance
The regulatory requirements
Electrical installation work in South Africa is governed by the Electrical Installation Regulations, 2009, under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Installation work may only be carried out by an electrical contractor registered with the Department of Employment and Labour, and the finished work is certified by a registered person against SANS 10142-1, the wiring code for low-voltage installations.
Beyond the wiring code, a project may need approval from the municipality or Eskom for a new or upgraded supply, registration of any embedded generation such as solar PV, and lightning protection designed to the SANS 62305 series. We identify these requirements during design, so approvals do not hold up the work later.
Documentation you keep
An installation is only as maintainable as its records. At handover you receive as-built drawings that show what was actually installed, single-line diagrams of the supply and distribution, circuit charts in every DB, the CoC and test report, and the manuals and datasheets for the equipment installed.
Those documents make the next alteration, the next CoC and every maintenance visit quicker and safer, whoever does the work.
Questions about installations
Do you handle mass housing and new residential developments?
Yes. Electrical installations for new residential houses and mass social-housing projects are part of our residential scope.
Can you add a generator or UPS to an existing installation?
Yes. We assess which loads must be backed up, size the generator or UPS for them, and install the changeover and protection, with a CoC for the alteration.
Will you work alongside our solar project?
Yes. Because we design and install solar PV as well, the DBs, protection, changeover and metering can be planned with the solar and battery system from the start rather than adapted later.
How is an installation priced?
Every installation is quoted on its own scope after a site visit and design. We do not publish standard prices, because no two sites are the same.
Planning an electrical installation?
Tell us about the site and what it needs to supply. Our engineers will assess the load, propose the design and prepare a quote.
Power On!