O’Donnell Griffin, a Norfolk Group company, has been honoured with the ‘best project’ Perpetual Award for the second consecutive year at the 2012 National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA) SA Excellence Awards.

The prestigious accolade, awarded for the Adelaide Desalination Plant Project which topped the Large Industrial category, was announced last Friday at a gala dinner in Adelaide.

The NECA SA Judges said the project provided O’Donnell Griffin with many significant challenges including installing more than 20,000m of high voltage (HV) cable with the longest continuous run being 800m.

“This was an enormous 100 gigalitres of water per annum plant, and the sheer size and complexity of the installation demanded ‘outside the square’ solutions to meet the project requirements,” said the Judges.

“The challenging scope also included 300,000 metres of low voltage cables and 200 electrical panels, more than 500HV terminations (with zero failures), thousands of metres of cable management system, and installations and termination of more than 3,500 instrumentation
cables.”

O’Donnell Griffin also topped the Small Industrial category for works completed on the Mini Wind Turbine Trial Project, and received a Commendation within the Large Commercial category for the delivery of the Adelaide Film and Screen Project.

A South Australian Government initiative, O’Donnell Griffin was awarded the role of lead contractor for the Australian-first Mini Wind Turbine Trial Project to undertake site selection, civil construction, environmental site management, installation and commissioning. According to the
NECA SA Judges, this required regular project meetings and a detailed communication plan as well as a completion report that included a coastal wind modelling test.

“The trial required installing four types of turbines, each up to forty times smaller than commercial turbines, to be used for comparisons and education to demonstrate the viability of this energy source,” said the Judges.

“The scope included installation of the four 15-metre poles, the turbines, all cabling, control gear, data monitoring, 200-hour commissioning test, maintenance and a comprehensive report for future operation.”

O’Donnell Griffin Operations chief executive Keian Barnard says the wins were a testament to Norfolk Group’s diversified engineering capabilities to deliver multi-disciplined, complex projects for customers.

“We’re incredibly pleased to have been recognised with the Perpetual Award among our peers for the second year running. These were milestone projects which successfully demonstrated O’Donnell Griffin moving up the food chain and our team’s capability to safely deliver innovative solutions,” Keian says.