Breaker Cubicle Fire Restoration
Duke Crystal River
A fault inside a breaker cubicle at Duke Energy’s Crystal River plant started a fire. Southern Switch was called in to strip the cubicle back, rebuild and re-insulate the bus, fabricate new GPO3 insulating board and a new door, refinish the cabinet and cable trays, and return it to service. Completed in two weeks, ahead of Duke’s schedule.
A fault,
then a fire.
The fault inside the cubicle ignited and burned. It left charred bus insulation, a scorched cabinet interior, damaged cable trays, and a door too far gone to repair. A fire-damaged cubicle is not a clean-and-close job. Everything the arc and heat touched has to come out, get inspected, and either be cleaned back to sound material or replaced before anything goes back in.
Stripped, rebuilt,
and redesigned.
Southern Switch cleaned the cubicle out, removed the bus, stripped the burnt insulation, cleaned the bus back to sound copper, and re-insulated it. The cabinet was cleaned and repainted, and the cable trays were removed, cleaned, repainted, and reinstalled.
The plan from the start was to retire the breaker in this cubicle and feed the load from a downstream breaker. So rather than re-terminating on a breaker, the bus was designed to pass straight through the cubicle. Southern Switch fabricated new GPO3 insulating board to carry and stand off the pass-through bus, and fabricated a new door, since the original was too damaged to repair.
Back in service,
ahead of schedule.
The rebuilt cubicle went back together in two weeks, ahead of Duke’s schedule: a redesigned pass-through bus, new GPO3 insulation, a new fabricated door, a refinished cabinet, and restored cable trays. One crew handled the field strip-out, the shop fabrication, and the reinstallation, which is how the schedule got pulled in.
Southern Switch restores fault- and fire-damaged switchgear: bus rework and re-insulation, GPO3 board and door fabrication, cabinet refinishing, and cable tray restoration, field and shop under one crew. Send us photos and we will scope it.