The electrical design engineer is able, either alone or as part of a team, to take a client’s brief and in conjunction with the architect’s plans prepare all the calculations that relate to the provision of the project electrical systems, prepare all the drawings necessary to enable the electrical capital plant to be purchased and the project electrical systems to be installed, prepare the technical specifications and the contractual documentation for the project electrical systems and prepare the project program.
The electrical design engineer must be able to negotiate with the architect the spatial requirements for the electrical equipment. This is always a difficult negotiation as the architect will try to give you the least amount of space he/she considers necessary whilst the you have to have adequate space for the equipment to ensure compliance with the Electricity at Work Regulation 15 - Working space, access and lighting - For the purposes of enabling injury to be prevented, adequate working space, adequate means of access, and adequate lighting shall be provided at all electrical equipment on which or near which work is being done in circumstances which may give rise to danger.
The electrical design engineer must also, if necessary, negotiate with the local public electricity supplier (PES) for the electricity supply required. This is also a difficult negotiation as the PES engineers are usually fresh out of university with no knowledge of real hands on engineering, their experience is limited to inputing data into a computer and declaring the computer output as the gospel. They are for the most part completely unable to think for themselves and therefore you have to think for them but in a way they do not realise you are doing it.
The electrical design engineer must be able to negotiate with the other project disciplines to ensure that their electrical requirements are met and that there is adequate space for electrical equipment and routes for cables. Under no circumstances take the word of other disciplines regarding the sanctity of space for equipment and cable routes; show it on drawings and issue them to all the other disciplines and get signatures against receipts for the drawings.
The electrical design engineer must be fully conversant with the Electricity Supply, Quality and Continuity Regulations; the Electricity at Work Regulations; the Health and Safety at Work Act; Construction, Design and Management Regulations; the Supply of Machinery (safety) Regulations; the IET Regulations; and any other applicable statutes and regulations.
The electrical design engineer must be fully conversant with AutoCad, to enable the preparation of drawings; Microsoft Excel, to enable the undertaking of the project calculations; Microsoft Project, to enable the preparation of the project program and Microsoft Word, for the preparation of the specifications and contract documents.
The electrical design engineer must be fully conversant with the costs of electrical equipment and the installation of that equipment,
It is necessary to have worked as an electrician to be able to design sensibly, as it is only by working as an electrician can you learn the limitations of installation work, a prime example of this are the bending radii of cables; the figures given in the catalogues are the minimum that can be achieved without damaging the cable, they do not relate to the physical ability to achieve that radius.
The calculations required for electrical installations include short circuit, earth fault and volt drop calculations around the entire electrical system of the project, protection grading from the intake from the PES to the final distribution protective devices, calculations for load assessment to determine the maximum demand and calculations for cable sizing.
The drawings required for electrical installations include single line diagrams, circuit and wiring diagrams and layout drawings showing the electrical equipment, wiring accessories, cable racking, cable tray, trunking and conduit.
The technical specifications required for electrical installations describe in detail the capital plant and the standards of workmanship expected.
The electrical project program has to be prepared to show the delivery periods for the capital plant, installation of the capital plant and the general electrical installation. The predecessors and successors must also be shown to enable the main contractor to integrate the electrical project program into the overall project program.