Futureproofing Switchboards at the Design and Manufacture Stage
Back to blogBy Shane, Sales and Logistics Lead at Excel Switchgear
I’ve been at Excel Switchgear for just over 11 years. In that time, one thing hasn’t changed: most conversations about switchboards start with “What’s the cheapest option?”
It’s a fair question. Switchboards aren’t glamorous. They sit in plant rooms, stairwells, and cupboards, and most people only think about them when something goes wrong.
But the decisions made at the design stage follow a switchboard for its entire life. Get it right, and the board serves the building for decades. Get it wrong, and you’re either stuck with something that can’t grow with you, or you’re paying to replace it far sooner than you should.
The cost of getting it wrong isn’t just the price of a new board. It’s the disruption, the downtime, and the fact that nobody advertises a secondhand 800-amp switchboard on Trade Me.
Here’s what I’ve learned about designing switchboards that last: from smart connectivity and generator integration to physical space and the things people consistently underestimate.
Smart, Connected Switchboards: When Did That Become the Norm?
When I started here, connectivity was part of the conversation but very much the exception. These days, almost everyone wants their switchboard to talk to their building management system (BMS). They want to see how many kilowatts each part of the building is consuming, where they can trim costs, and which circuits are running hot.
The shift has been most visible in government and education. Schools routinely specify boards that communicate with each other, comparing energy use across blocks or departments. A woodworking room versus an art room, for example. Government buildings do the same, tracking usage by floor or tenancy.
We’re currently pricing a board for a marae where they’ve asked for connectivity alongside space reserved for future generator switching. That combination, smart monitoring plus room to grow, is exactly what good futureproofing looks like.
Who Actually Needs Connected Switchboards?
Not every building does. In my experience, the clearest demand comes from:
- Single-tenant buildings (schools, hospitals, government departments, commercial facilities) where the owner wants to track where their power spend is going
- Buildings with solar or battery storage, where real-time data helps optimise when to draw from the grid and whether excess generation can go back for a credit
- Facilities with generator backup, where the monitoring system needs to coordinate load shedding and automatic switching
Multi-tenant buildings like apartment blocks work differently. Each apartment has its own energy monitor, but there’s usually no centralised connectivity between them. Our job is often just to design the board with enough physical space to accommodate those meters later, when the power authority installs them on site.
Generator Integration: From a Key to Fully Automated
Generator integration is probably the clearest example of how wide the range of switchboard solutions can be.
At the simple end, you have a Ronis key system. The main switch and the generator switch are keyed identically. You physically cannot turn the generator on without first removing the key from the main switch. Simple, mechanical, reliable.
At the other end, you have fully automated systems that do all of this in milliseconds:
- The system monitors incoming mains power continuously
- If power drops, it waits briefly to confirm it’s not just a momentary dip
- It signals the generator to start and waits for a stable output
- Once stable, it switches the building load across
- Once the mains power is restored and stable, it transfers the load back and shuts the generator down
The whole sequence happens faster than I can describe it. Manufacturers like Schneider Electric keep improving the accuracy and reliability of these systems.
When the Generator Can’t Run Everything
Most generators aren’t sized to carry an entire building at full load. A building might have a 400-amp mains supply but only a 160-amp generator. So the system also needs to manage load shedding, automatically dropping non-essential circuits so the generator isn’t overwhelmed.
In a hospital or data centre, that means keeping critical equipment running while dropping lighting in unused areas. On a farm with unreliable mains, it might mean keeping the freezers on while the shed lights go out.
All of this is configurable through modules within the switchboard. But it has to be designed in from the start. You can’t easily retrofit load shedding logic into a board that wasn’t built for it.
Physical Size: Where People Consistently Get It Wrong
This is where a lot of people get tripped up, and it almost always comes back to price. I understand that. But there’s a real cost to going too small that doesn’t appear on the quote.
Think of it this way: if I hand you a shoebox and tell you to wire it up, how are you going to get your fingers in there? A board that’s too tight makes the installer’s job harder, creates problems during servicing, and can compromise the quality of the terminations.
Cable Entry and Working Space
One of the first things we ask when quoting is what’s feeding the board and where the cables are coming from. The reason: the further a cable runs, the larger it needs to be to compensate for volt drop. When a large cable arrives at the switchboard, there has to be room to work with it.
Sometimes an electrician needs to step the cable down inside the board, reducing it to a smaller size before it connects to the main switch. That takes space. If the board is too small, that work either can’t be done properly or has to happen outside the enclosure, which creates its own problems.
We’ve sent boards out of our workshop with two of the three cabinets completely empty, because the meters were being installed on site by the power authority. That’s not waste. That’s the right design.
Access and Serviceability
The other thing people underestimate is ongoing access. There are legal requirements around door opening widths, how high and low switchgear can be mounted, and clearance in front of the board. These aren’t guidelines.
I’ve seen boards installed under stairs where the door can only open partway before hitting the ceiling. I’ve seen cupboard installations where the specified door swing was never actually achievable. At a Wellington university, we had to retrofit a single wide door into two narrower barn-style doors after installation, because nobody had thought through the clearance at the design stage.
The rule I come back to every time: if it’s difficult to install, it’ll be even harder to service. And someone will have to service it eventually.
Most of these problems aren’t fixable after the fact. The time to solve them is before anything gets built.
Getting the design right at the start is always less expensive than getting it wrong.
We’ve built well over 100,000 boards; that experience means we’ve seen most of the mistakes that can be made. We use a detailed design checklist to make sure nothing gets missed. Customers who let us guide them through it tend to end up with boards that serve them well for a long time. Those who don’t sometimes ring back a year later with a problem that was entirely avoidable.
What Gets Forgotten, and What People Don’t Know Exists
There are two categories here: things people forget, and things they’ve never heard of.
Things People Forget
Surge protection is the most common oversight. A direct lightning strike puts everything in the electrical system at risk: computers, control systems, and equipment. Surge protection devices inside the switchboard can prevent that. They’re not expensive. They don’t take up much space. But if nobody raises it at the design stage, it often doesn’t get included.
Emergency lighting test circuits are another one. Commercial and multi-tenancy buildings need their emergency lighting tested regularly. That requires a dedicated circuit that can trigger a timed test of all battery-backed fittings. It’s a legal requirement in most buildings, and it’s still the kind of thing that gets forgotten until the last minute.
Common area metering in apartment buildings is easy to overlook. Every tenant gets their own meter. Fine. But the building owner also needs metering for shared spaces: exterior lighting, stairwell lighting, time clocks, sensors. If that’s not in the design, it becomes a problem at commissioning.
Things People Don’t Know Exist
Switchgear technology has moved a long way, and not everyone keeps up. Manufacturers like Schneider invest heavily in R&D, and there are products available now that most people simply haven’t come across.
One example: main switches for large buildings that can be operated via Bluetooth from your phone. You can commission a board standing around the corner, out of the line of fire, if something goes wrong. That’s not a gimmick. For anyone who’s ever been the one to throw the switch on a large board for the first time, that’s a real safety improvement.
Residual current devices (RCDs) are similar. They come in a range of types and ratings suited to different load types. Not all RCDs are the same, and using the wrong type can cause nuisance tripping or, worse, inadequate protection.
If you don’t know something exists, you can’t ask for it. That’s why the design conversation matters. It’s our job to raise these options, explain what they do, and let the customer decide.
A switchboard isn’t just a box of switches. It’s the infrastructure that everything else in your building depends on.
Practical Advice for Anyone Planning a New Switchboard
For larger or complex projects, we recommend having an electrical engineering consultant involved early. They have the time and expertise to work through what the building needs, now and in the future. By the time a project reaches us, the specification should already have captured most of this.
For smaller projects, where it’s the electrician, the building owner, and us working it out together, the design conversation is everything. That’s where we go through our checklist, ask the right questions, and make sure nothing gets missed.
One more thing worth mentioning: switchgear has a finite service life. Manufacturers like Schneider specify that after 10 years, equipment needs attention. Most commercial and industrial buildings are still running the same switchboard installed 20 years ago, with no servicing. Hospitals and large facilities tend to stay on top of this. Most others don’t. We recommend every building owner make plans for regular servicing and maintenance checks.
Futureproofing isn’t just about designing for growth. It’s about designing for longevity, making sure the board running your building is actually fit to keep doing so.
If you’re planning a new switchboard or considering an upgrade, talk to the team at Excel Switchgear. We’ve been doing this for over 30 years and have built more than 100,000 boards across New Zealand. We’ll ask the right questions and make sure you get a board that works for you now and well into the future.