Responsible partnerships for longevity in UK power engineering
EES has secured a contract to deliver four protection panels, demonstrating how protection panel design contributes to long-term reliability. The two sites belong to a major European energy firm, it engaged electrical panel builder Westbury Control Systems to realise its designs and host both functional and cyber factory acceptance testing (FAT). EES and Westbury Control Systems share a common attitude: value lies in longevity in service. Delivering that resilience throughout the equipment lifetime requires granular investigation and lots of forward-planning.
Engineering partnerships as technical filters
One central pillar of engineering longevity is an instinct to shoulder responsibility, even when it’s optional. Built-to-print jobs are common in machine building, high-volume and repetitive.
Manufacturers can take the path of least resistance when it comes to following a design specification — if it’s in the plan, even if experience tells you that it will cause problems later, some push ahead without regard. This can even be a lucrative approach.
“We’ve had customers come to us who’ve been charged twice by other panel builders, once for building to a flawed spec, and once for correcting it,” explained Josh Phillips, engineer at Westbury. “With experience, you can see common errors coming and address them early on.”
Conscientious, and reputation-conscious, machine builders take a different tack. 3D panel visualisation tools allow them to interrogate designs before the manufacturing stage. Rotating and exploring panels on screen shows up where a component won’t physically fit or where supply chain issues might create a problem when swapping one part for another.
“I know from speaking with Glynn Westbury that this has been their philosophy right from day one,” said Tim Burchell, EES’ head of operations and projects, of the company founder.
“For this project, we got Westbury involved early, proposing our design but asking for their suggestions. This worked much better than dropping a design on them a month before the delivery target date and saying ‘stick to that,’” continued Burchell.
This two-way collaboration created time to deal with engineering complications. When the customer asked for a specific, time-consuming crimping method, Phillips identified the potential issue. The two teams discussed how to accommodate it and adjusted the timeline, with plenty of notice for the customer.
Protection panel design for performance and maintenance
Manufacturing power installations that will serve for decades means balancing several priorities. As well as specifying high-quality components and building robust supporting infrastructure, designers must provide accessible maintenance pathways for their future industrial counterparts.
In this project, that meant including a swing frame housing large relays inside each panel. Where space is at a premium, expanding the surface area inside the enclosures gives unencumbered access to every component. Although the wiring process becomes more complex, the trade-off is an easy one for a customer who knows that its maintenance engineers will be grateful for many years to come.
“This is our second project with EES, and we know that design for maintenance is a core part of their philosophy,” said Phillips. “The space saving that the swing frames enable us to get everything we need into the cubicle while preserving access for future works. One of the worst things a service engineer can find is a black box where they can’t reach what they need without making other alterations.
“It’s not just a convenience question, there’s also the safety element. The panels will stay powered through functional testing, so being able to work with good clearance is important,” Phillips continued.
Protection panel design meets operational technology security
The project presented an opportunity to adhere to the latest cybersecurity requirements, mandated by Ofgem. Global cybersecurity firm NCC Group revealed in May that the industrials sector, including manufacturing, engineering and infrastructure, faced the greatest number of ransomware attacks in the year to March 2026, at 2,073.
“When OT systems are disrupted, the impact goes far beyond data loss – production can halt, essential services can be disrupted, and in some cases, lives can be put at risk,” said Ray Robinson, OT director at NCC Group.
It is this climate that’s prompting power generation companies to increase their cybersecurity requirements. The UK’s Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, awaiting Parliamentary approval at time of writing, incorporates principles from the European NIS2 standard.
As well as traditional IT, NIS2 covers OT, which is relatively new in the context of power sector asset lifecycles, but normalising fast. Ofgem has published obligations for power generation utility companies to adhere to OT and industrial automation and control systems (IACS) cyber protection.
“OT security is appearing on pretty much every new project we’re quoting for,” said Burchell. “This job included the first dedicated cyber FAT that EES has conducted, which shows you how recent this is even for us.”
EES drew on another partnership to deliver the cyber FAT. KONČAR – Digital, a digital transformation specialist division of KONČAR Group, consulted on the formal FAT plan document. The Croatian engineering services provider advised on compliance mapping the Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) onto EES’ control panels, investigating vulnerabilities and configuring audit trails to monitor for unwanted access.
Four protection panels soon to be shipped to the facilities awaiting them.
One of the NIS2 standard’s environment control requirements is careful access management to operational technology during assembly and manufacturing. Testing could therefore only take place with EES engineers present. This added to the timeline strain on the project, but could also have created logistical headaches for Westbury, who had other customers and machine builds to think about.
Static bubbles facilitate rigorous testing
For many manufacturers, keeping four assembled panels on site with intermittent external work being performed would bring operational difficulties and limit new work. Fortunately, the nine bays at Westbury’s facility in Narborough, Leicestershire, enabled not only the customer’s FATs but also nearly two months of pre-FAT testing.
Westbury engineers conducted its standard functionality assessment in February 2026, including point-to-point, continuity and earth testing. EES engineers Oliver Carpenter and Lamia Saiyara then spent the next eight weeks on-site on the live test phase, undisturbed as Westbury’s business continued in the other build zones.
“The multi-bay layout means we can cordon off a dedicated space for something like this. We gave Oli and Lamia their own static bubble, shielded from the noise and movement of the rest of the floor,” said Phillips.
In addition to a C&I engineer from the customer visiting for the cyber FAT, five compliance and electrical representatives attended Westbury’s facility across two days for the functional FAT. This can be a nerve-wracking event for some engineers — not so for EES and Westbury.
“We supplied a full test schedule to the customer and invited them to select any test they wanted to see when they arrived, with no advance warning for us,” explained Carpenter, EES’ electrical protection engineer.
“This wasn’t a stunt,” Saiyara agreed. “After such intense pre-FAT work, we had full confidence in what we were presenting and the panels’ performance.”
From the shop floor to the factory
The customer’s engineers accepted the panels at the first time of asking. They will soon be shipped to the facilities awaiting them and commissioned into action, with the trust of EES, Westbury and the customer.
“Working directly engineer-to-engineer, we resolve technical challenges long before they reach the intended facility,” said Burchell. “That lets us move beyond the testing phase with full confidence in our projects.”
“We don’t get a lot of noise once the thing’s gone out, and that’s how I like it. We had EES’ customary ‘lessons learned’ meeting, to process any useful experience we could take forward, then we got on with the next project,” said Phillips.
While no news is good news for industrial system integrators, EES stays in contact to support its customers after the project. Each decision taken by the partnership before and during manufacturing: catching spec errors early; designing for maintenance; building in security; and testing exhaustively is done to make that support easier.
“That’s the cost-effectiveness that customers are after,” Phillips concluded. “It’s about value years down the line.”
To understand how EES’ protection panel design and excitation integration capabilities could bring reliable excitation control to your facility, read more about our expertise here.
Recent Comments