The Battersea Power Station's Redevelopment Project

The iconic Battersea Power Station Grade II* listed building and surrounding area is being brought back to life as one of the most exciting and innovative mixed-use neighbourhoods in the world – a place for locals, tourists, and residents to enjoy a unique blend of restaurants, shops, and parks, as well as residential, commercial, and cultural spaces. And in autumn this year it is set to have its own Tube station, which is the final stop of a Northern Line extension currently nearing completion.

The Power Station’s legacy shell is still mostly intact, although the chimneys have been rebuilt; the originals were too toxic to be cleaned. Many of the internal features have been retained and restored as appropriate. These include the art-deco pillars, marble walls and a switchroom still fully populated with switchgear. With steelwork, crane, and rails still in place, this adds up to a very impressive space. The old switch room, complete with original instrument dials and solid brass-framed bay windows and marble walls, will provide the focal point for a members’ only bar.

The upper floors will become commercial space, accommodating Apple’s new R&D offices, among others. Then there will be residential spaces, from £850,000 for a studio apartment to £40 million penthouses at the top – of which one has been bought by Elton John already.

Clearly, a large, prestigious site like this needs effective access control and security protection – and Convergint Technologies was a leading contractor during installation. The company designs, installs and services seamlessly integrated physical security solutions for a wide range of verticals and industries, working in partnership with equipment manufacturers and software developers. They have installed CCTV throughout the Battersea Power Station site, as well as security and access control for a large part of the project. Hardware has included an IoT server and IP cameras as well as alarm systems and the access control equipment.

Interconnecting all of this equipment posed its own set of challenges, but FS Cables played an important role in overcoming these – not only because of the range and quality of their cables, but also through their ability to meet some very specific and exacting delivery requirements imposed by both Convergint and the Battersea Power Station site.

Convergint’s shopping list included 12-core, 0.22mm screened alarm cable, single-pair 18 AWG lock cable, and both 6-core and 8-core 24 AWG screened data cables for card readers. As the project progressed, they also discovered that they needed rugged external/water resistant versions of the screened alarm cables for running through exterior ducts. Fortunately, FS Cables could solve this with product from stock.

All internal cables had to be low smoke, halogen free type.

Unusually, Convergint required all the cables to be delivered in 200m rather than 100m lengths, not just to accommodate longer cable runs, but also to reduce offcut waste. While supplying  cables in these 200m lengths, FS Cables also protected Convergint commercially. Convergint could order all cables in advance; FS Cables then held them in their warehouse ready to be called off immediately on demand. Importantly, the price was agreed in November 2019 at the project start, and remained fixed through to completion in May 2021. (Read about the benefits of order call off here).

When Convergint called for the cables, the Battersea Power Station site management insisted that delivery scheduling had to comply with stringent one-hour time slots. FS Cables was consistently able to do this – no mean feat, considering the unpredictability of London traffic and the difficulty of finding anywhere to park up.

Overall, the amount of all cables supplied added up to over 210,000 km, a number that highlights the very large scale of the project. This in turn is an excellent example of how FS Cables is typically involved in working with national contractors on major installations throughout the UK and beyond.

If you’d like to discuss your next project or talk to someone about the benefits of order call off, drop us a line or speak to one of the team on 01727 840841.