Tasmania's best electrical and communications contractors named

The National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA) has announced Tasmania’s best electrical and communications contractors and apprentices at its annual awards. 

Finalists were presented in front of 210 industry representatives including contractors, suppliers, educators and government representatives.

NECA Tasmania President Wayne Hobson said, “We really appreciate the time our members put into submitting their projects for our awards. We saw some particularly impressive projects this year, and it’s a real pleasure to acknowledge the great work that NECA members have done across Tasmania. We also congratulate our apprentices. They are the future of our industry and this year’s finalists were a very impressive group of individuals.”

The winners are as follows:

Contact Electrical

Lighting Project — Morrison Street, Street Lighting Upgrade

As part of the City of Hobart’s urban renewal project, Contact Electrical installed street, seat and decorative lighting in Morrison Street in Hobart’s historic waterfront precinct. The provision of the new lighting and power infrastructure required complex forward planning to ensure the works could be completed whilst maintaining public access.

Contact Electrical’s works included mains cabling, concealed power outlets, lighting poles and a new switchboard concealed within a cultural bollard. Existing in-ground infrastructure had to be located, assessed and removed if redundant, while several cable pits and conduits had to be raised due to tidal flooding in the area.

RBD Electrical & Instrumentation 

Commercial Small Project — TasWater North West Regional Offices

The North West regional office for TasWater in Devonport consists of 1833 m² of primarily open-plan office space, with 120 workstations, private offices, meeting and training rooms, and amenities. The building also houses a communications room, an electrical switch room and an external building for the generator and MSB.

The main electrical contract was completed to a customer-appointed engineer’s design, whilst the HVAC portion of work was undertaken as a design/construct project in conjunction with a mechanical services contractor. RBD encountered numerous design changes during the project and had the opportunity to provide key technical advice.

Contact Electrical 

Voice/Data Communications & Audio Visual Project — Project Unite

Federal Group installed a new gaming management system at both casinos in Tasmania, transitioning to the new e-Bet system. 800 gaming machines, grouped in 80 banks, were moved to the new system in less than three months. Contact’s works included power and communications infrastructure to service the new system.

The electronic gaming machines (EGMs) are mounted on bases that have wiring access between all functional units. Contact installed cable trays, services poles to each bank, soft-wired DGPOs, switches, fibre-optic interface boards, a multimode OM4, a single-mode fibre backbone and a CAT6A horizontal copper system.

RBD Electrical & Instrumentation 

Industrial Small Project — Liapootah Power Station Generator Power Cable Replacement

Outages to the public-owned Hydro Tasmania power generators are costly. RBD replaced the three hydropower 31 MVA generator set 11 kV power cables. Each generator connection consisted of six 630 mm single-core paper and lead cables, laid in a trefoil configuration, running for 150 m through the HV cable tunnel.

The old lead cables were safely disposed of and RBD laid temporary HV cables outside the cable tunnel to keep one machine in operation during the replacement of the other generator cables. RBD finished the challenging project 10 days ahead of schedule, helping maintain revenue from the power station.

RBD Electrical & Instrumentation 

Industrial Medium Project — TasWater Infrastructure Upgrade, Lady Barron Whitemark & Mole Creek.

As part of its ongoing program of capital upgrades, TasWater commissioned new potable water treatment plants to be built on Flinders Island and at Mole Creek in North West Tasmania. RBD was required to design, supply and install all aspects of motive distribution required for the new plant and equipment.

During the project, work crews stayed on Flinders Island, while the Mole Creek plant meant three hours daily travel to and from the site. The projects encountered bushfires, flooding, snow and wind, resulting in flight delays and road closures — meaning working hours and fatigue levels needed to be managed carefully.

Commendation — Commercial Small Project Degree C for Dan Murphy’s Store

Commendation — Commercial Small Project — Shane Hill Electrical for Hill Street Grocer

Commendation for Industrial Medium Project — Klimate Solutions for Macquarie Hotel, Ibis Styles, Mechanical Electrical & Building Management System Controls

Apprentice Award winners

Gerry Dallas 
Commercial/Domestic
Employed by NECA Education and Careers 
Hosted by AS Farr

Zane Bewg
Industrial
Employed by NECA Education and Careers
Hosted by Frontline

David Pilgrim
Runner-up — Commercial Domestic Category
Employed by NECA Education and Careers
Hosted by RBD Electrical & Instrumentation

Marcus Dobson
Third place — Commercial Domestic Category
Employed by NECA Education and Careers
Hosted by RBD Electrical & Instrumentation