Electrical Solutions for Retail & Commercial
Distribution boards, sub-metering panels, and standby-power changeover for supermarkets, retail shops, fashion outlets, and high-street stores across Kenya.
The load profile of a Kenyan retail and commercial building
Supermarkets, malls, showrooms, hotels and office blocks carry a wide load rather than a single heavy one. Lighting, air conditioning, refrigeration, lifts, escalators, water pumps, kitchen equipment, tills and IT all sit on the same incoming KPLC supply, and each has a different duty cycle. Refrigeration and air conditioning compressors run for long periods and draw a starting current several times their full-load current, while lighting and small power run almost continuously through trading hours.
That mix pushes the design towards a clearly tiered distribution system: a main distribution board at the intake, sub-main boards for each floor, tenancy or department, and final distribution boards close to the loads themselves. Tiering keeps cable runs short, limits the number of circuits lost to a single fault, and makes it possible to meter tenants separately, which matters in any building where service charges are recovered from occupiers.
Continuity when the incoming supply fails
Grid interruptions are a normal planning assumption in Kenya, and standby generation is the usual answer for any building where a lost trading hour costs real money. The changeover between utility supply and generator is handled by an automatic transfer switch panel, which senses loss of the incoming supply, starts the set, transfers the load and returns it once the utility is stable. Where an operator prefers to control the changeover by hand, or wants a maintenance bypass, a manual transfer panel is used instead or in addition.
Generators are rarely sized to carry the whole building. Essential circuits are separated onto their own boards so that refrigeration, tills, security, emergency lighting, lifts and server rooms stay live while non-essential loads such as decorative lighting or part of the air conditioning are shed. That separation has to be designed into the switchboard from the start, because retrofitting it later usually means rebuilding the board. The low-voltage assemblies most often specified for this sector include:
- Main distribution boards at the intake, carrying the incoming protection device and metering
- Sub-main distribution boards for each floor, tenancy or department
- Final distribution boards for lighting, small power and dedicated equipment circuits
- ATS and MTS transfer panels linking the utility supply and the standby generator
- APFC panels to hold the power factor up and keep the tariff penalty off the bill
- Meter boards where tenants are billed separately for what they use
Power factor and the cost of a commercial tariff
Motor loads, lift drives and older lighting all pull reactive power, and commercial tariffs in Kenya apply a penalty where the recorded power factor falls below the level the tariff sets. An automatic power factor correction panel switches capacitor steps in and out as the load varies, holding the measured power factor up and removing that charge. It also frees capacity in the incoming cable and switchgear, which can defer an expensive supply upgrade.
Where variable speed drives, LED drivers and IT equipment make up a large share of the load, harmonics have to be considered when the correction equipment is specified, since plain capacitor banks are stressed by a distorted supply. Metering instruments and current transformers fitted in the board show what the power factor is actually doing before and after correction.
Compliance, environment and getting the board built
Assemblies for commercial premises are built to IEC 61439-1 and IEC 61439-2, the standard for low-voltage switchgear and controlgear assemblies, and component selection matters as much as the enclosure: MCBs, MCCBs, ACBs and relays from Schneider Electric, ABB and Siemens are specified against the prospective fault level at the point of installation. EPRA regulation governs the licensed contractors who carry out the installation, and KEBS certification applies to the equipment brought into the country.
Panel Tech Systems manufactures these assemblies in Nairobi under an ISO 9001 quality system and dispatches field teams from Nairobi for installation and commissioning across Kenya and East Africa. Enclosure and ingress protection ratings are chosen for where the board will actually sit, since a plant room on a mall roof, a car park riser and an air-conditioned electrical room are three very different environments.
Building or upgrading retail & commercial infrastructure?
Our engineers will scope, design, and deliver electrical systems built to your sector's reliability standards.
