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PowerPanels

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Scott Milliken edited this page May 23, 2023 · 1 revision

Managing your power panels in openDCIM is another optional feature, but is highly recommended to get the most value out of the system. Depending upon your organization's requirements around Lock-Out/Tag-Out and/or hot work in panels, one of the most demanding tasks is keeping track of what would be affected by an outage to a specific panel. At all US Department of Energy sites, hot work is prohibited, so the documentation of what is connected to each circuit is of utmost importance.

The base of documenting power connections is the Power Source. If you think of a Power Source representing a Main Switch Board, then the Power Panel is the "last mile" segment of that service. openDCIM does not currently support sub-panels, so you will need to document only the last panel in a series. This may change in a future release, but to date it has not been a priority to include support for.

Database Information

The data for Power Panels is stored in the fac_PowerPanel table, and references a foreign key of fac_PowerSource.PowerSourceID to determine the upstream source. PanelID is also used as a foreign key in the fac_PowerDistribution table.

Field Information

  • PanelID - The real value is invisible to the user, this is the unique key assigned by MySQL. It is referenced as a foreign key by fac_PowerDistribution. The Manage Power Panels screen instead shows the PanelLabel in the pick list.
  • PowerSourceID - A foreign key reference to a Power Source, as defined in fac_PowerSource. The user will see the Name given to the Power Source, rather than the ID, when choosing from the pick list.
  • PanelLabel - The name that you will assign to the panel. It is highly recommended that you have a unique naming scheme across your enterprise for power panels.
  • NumberOfPoles - The number of poles available in this panel. Most panels in North America are 42 poles long, but there are other variants.
  • MainBreakerSize - The main breaker size, which is simply used for reporting capacity.
  • NumberScheme - Whether the breaker poles are numbered sequentially (such as with a Liebert FDC) or odd numbers on the left and even numbers on the right (like a standard wall mounted panel). The application will draw a panel schedule based upon the circuits defined to it, so this tells the application which template to use.
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