Sitting on the corner of Oxford Terrace and Armagh Street, the Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre features a 1400-seat auditorium, a 1000-seat banquet hall, 2800m2 of exhibition space and 24 meeting rooms, making it the largest such facility in the country.
Its architectural design draws inspiration from the braided rivers of the Canterbury Plains, the neo-gothic architecture of Christchurch city and patterns and colours of Ngāi Tahu tradition.
Our Reticulation Team planned and designed the electrical network solution tailored to meet the specific needs of this inspiring riverside building. The solution involved a detailed 6.5MVA connection, which required a custom indoor substation equipped with one 500kVA transformer and four 1500kVA transformers.
To ensure network resilience for the building during events, our detailed design incorporated multiple sources of 11kV power supply. This was executed by connecting multiple fully automated 11kV ring main units within the new substation. The new 11kV cables run in ducts to ensure ease of maintenance, accessibility and to allow for future upgrades.
In addition to the engineering expertise required to compile the specifications for this 6.5MVA connection, our Reticulation team collaborated with the network owner Orion to investigate the construction methodology. It involved bringing together multiple parties to establish a cohesive and staged approach to the build phase. This collaboration ensured safe construction practices while minimizing outages and disruptions to the existing network.
The Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre was designed to revitalize the city and stimulate the Canterbury economy post-2011 earthquake and the Covid-19 pandemic. The resilience of the electrical network design is a vital part of this initiative.
