Family Mall Erbil is the largest shopping centre in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The emergency power supplies were initially split into separate power stations, providing emergency power to different parts of the complex such as the supermarket, fans, the motel and the shopping areas. A total of 16 diesel generator sets were grouped in clusters of up to five; the supermarket’s emergency power was supplied by 5 Caterpillar C32/1032 kVA generator sets running in parallel.
In 2014, dissatisfied with the performance of the previous control modules, the customer asked the DSE distributor to replace the control modules and run the sets in parallel with the DSE8610 series. The success of the project led to further changes in the emergency power infrastructure. All 16 generator sets were brought together in a single location to form a single emergency power station, consisting of 12 Perkins/Leroy-Somer 4008/1100 kVA and 4 Caterpillar C32/1032 kVA generator sets.
The sets were then divided into 4 groups of 4 generators each. All four groups now run in parallel with one another, and when the mains supply fails — which can last more than twelve hours a day — the total of 16 MW of power generated is transferred to the load. The output voltage of each group is stepped up to 33 kV via its respective transformer.
The 16 DSE8610 units are located in a control room away from the generator sets and are overseen by a central PLC system. The system has only two selector switches, which, using the built-in DSE PLC logic function within the control modules, provides easy fully automatic or manual operation, either on load or according to load demand.
