About Us
About Paragon Engineering
Paragon Engineering was founded in 2006. Since our founding, we have strived to be extraordinary in business. We exist to be the customer’s trusted advisor in matters pertaining to their power distribution installation. We advise and advocate for the customer to maximize revenue and minimize system downtime.
After IST or final commissioning is completed and your consultant has moved on to another project, Paragon can fill that void for the service/upgrade of your system.
Power Distribution
Equipment Life
Expectancy
No Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) provides a definitive answer to the life span of power distribution equipment. The following was taken from the Square D/Schneider Electric website and is the best explanation:
There are no set limits per standards of the life of an equipment. The components, like a circuit breaker have a limited performance (10,000 mechanical operations, 10,000 load current and 50 maximum short circuit operations). After that the breaker can be replaced. The enclosure, busing, etc. has a 15-30 year life span, but that is not a mandatory requirement. It is not uncommon to have 50 years and older switchgear in service and working well.
After Commissioning
The most conservative estimate if the life expectancy is 30 years for power distribution equipment in a data center, the equipment spends 90% of it’s time (based on 2 years in design and 1 year to fully commission) in operation. That’s 27 years of operation in a wide range of environments where prudent preventive maintenance is performed. There is no thought given to what hardware is obsolete, what are the available replacements until there is a failure within the system.
The cost of the equipment replacement is usually minimal when compared to the cost of the shutdown required for replacement.
Yes, there are real time monitoring software platforms that look at the performance of the hardware but they never consider what the path forward is in the event of a failure.
Paragon’s Mission
If you have a power distribution and control system that is over 5 years old, there is a 50% chance that a critical component to your vital system is obsolete. If you’re equipment is more than 10 years old your liability increases to over 90%. The protective relays, automated controls, and SCADA system will be obsolete at least 2 to 3 times in a 20 year life cycle. Our primary customers are data centers, healthcare facilities, and 24/7 continuous operations (folks that depend on reliable power and power systems for their day to day business).
Where does that
knowledge come from?
Over 32 years of experience of design and services with four major Original Equipment Manufacturers (Emerson Industrial Services, Square D/Schneider Electric, General Electric, ABB).
Our specialty is power distribution equipment and their associated control system assessments. A vast knowledge base of 50 years of installed equipment allows Paragon to make recommendations for rebuild, refurbish, retrofit and retrofill options.