Power supply for the Humboldt Forum

The com­pa­ny fro mul­ti-tech­ni­cal ser­vices for ener­gy and com­mu­ni­ca­tions SPIE has been con­tract­ed by the Fed­er­al Office for Build­ing and Region­al Plan­ning to pro­vide pow­er and light­ing through­out the new con­struc­tion of the Hum­boldt Forum, as well as to install the lamps and lumi­naires in all pub­lic areas. In the course of the open­ing, there is still remain­ing work to be done, which is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed this summer.

After the Berlin Palace was severe­ly dam­aged in World War II and blown up in 1950, work began in 2013 to par­tial­ly recon­struct the Baroque facades and build the Hum­boldt Forum, which opened on July 20, 2021. It offers a 40,000-square-meter cul­tur­al and sci­en­tif­ic pro­gram with exhi­bi­tions, work­shops, dig­i­tal projects, artis­tic inter­ven­tions and per­for­mances. SPIE Ger­many & Cen­tral Europe will be respon­si­ble for the instal­la­tion, pro­vi­sion, main­te­nance, repair and dis­man­tling of the com­plete pow­er sup­ply and con­struc­tion light­ing sys­tem through­out the con­struc­tion peri­od. In addi­tion, the mul­ti-tech­nol­o­gy ser­vice provider will sup­ply and install all lamps and lumi­naires in the pub­lic areas of the Hum­boldt Forum, pay­ing close atten­tion to col­or pref­er­ences as well as the ori­en­ta­tion of the light.

Reliable and flexible site power

The pow­er sup­ply sys­tem installed for the con­tract by the team led by project man­ag­er Rudolf Kollmer from the CityNet­works & Grids busi­ness unit con­sists of a trans­former sta­tion and around 450 dis­trib­u­tors, includ­ing main build­ing dis­trib­u­tors, group and site pow­er dis­trib­u­tors, as well as around 100 kilo­me­ters of cables and lines of var­i­ous cross-sec­tions. In addi­tion, there are 1800 con­struc­tion lumi­naires and 800 emer­gency lumi­naires that con­tin­ue to pro­vide light even in the event of a pow­er fail­ure. The ten-strong team also pro­vides the emer­gency pow­er sys­tem and a 24/7 emer­gency hot­line 365 days a year to rec­ti­fy faults with­in the short­est pos­si­ble time.

“We have already redesigned the pow­er sup­ply sys­tem sev­er­al times, depend­ing on the progress of the respec­tive project and tak­ing into account the require­ments of the com­pa­nies involved in the new con­struc­tion. For events, for exam­ple the Con­struc­tion Site Open Day, we cre­at­ed the nec­es­sary con­di­tions in the form of safe­guards in the short­est pos­si­ble time so that vis­i­tors could move around the object and the site safely.”

- Rudolf Kollmer

Hand in hand to the right light

The mul­ti-tech­nol­o­gy ser­vice provider also act­ed flex­i­bly and at short notice in the sup­ply and instal­la­tion of around 8,000 lamps and lumi­naires from around 20 dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers, most of them equipped with ener­gy-sav­ing LED tech­nol­o­gy. “We flex­i­bly adapt­ed the instal­la­tions to the con­struc­tion sched­ule,” reports Rudolf Kollmer, who deploys anoth­er project team with up to 12 employ­ees for the lamp and lumi­naire instal­la­tion at the Hum­boldt Forum. All lamps and lumi­naires for the pub­lic areas, such as exhi­bi­tion and event areas, cor­ri­dors, stair­wells, entrance areas, san­i­tary rooms and facades, are sam­pled by the client and light­ing design­er pri­or to order­ing. For the most part, the team then installs them at heights of more than four meters. 

“Often there are spe­cial designs to be installed, such as emer­gency lumi­naires, lumi­nous ceil­ings, con­tin­u­ous rows, recessed down­lights or pen­dant lumi­naires. Imple­ment­ing the align­ment of the light as well as adjust­ing the light inten­si­ty in the exhi­bi­tion areas accord­ing to the user’s spec­i­fi­ca­tions is chal­leng­ing. Here we design hand in hand with our client and the light­ing design­ers. We pay par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to work safe­ty dur­ing work prepa­ra­tion and exe­cu­tion,” says Matthias Richter, head of the Ener­gy Plant Con­struc­tion department.

The com­pa­ny has been work­ing togeth­er with the Fed­er­al Office for Build­ing and Region­al Plan­ning in a spir­it of trust for more than 20 years. “Togeth­er, we are delight­ed that the new, old Berlin land­mark will soon shine com­plete­ly in a new light,” con­cludes Matthias Richter.