Pluggable light and floor installation for NATO The Hague

Published on 7 december 2022 21 March 2019Time to read: 3 minutes

The expansion and renovation of the NATO complex in The Hague was necessary due to contemporary requirements and the growing number of employees. Isolectra’s pluggable electrical installation concepts were used to save valuable time and increase the ease of installation.

NCIA is a NATO ICT agency and is engaged in testing communication equipment and intelligent computer systems developed by NATO. To prevent the NCIA from moving to another location, Rijksvastgoedbedrijf, the Central Government Real Estate Agency, the owner of the building, issued a tender for new construction (phase 1) and renovation (phase 2) of the existing building. Construction consortium NCIA, consisting of Boele & van Eesteren and Visser & Smit Bouw, was awarded phase 1 of the project, the new building. Phase 2 start mid 2019. The construction consortium called in HOMIJ Major Projects for the design and realisation of the technical installations in the new building.

Computer floor

HOMIJ Major Projects is a pluggable specialist from the very beginning. “More than ten years ago, we introduced the concept of pluggable electrical installation to the Dutch market in Jeroen Bosch Hospital together with Isolectra”, says Michel Molenaar, Realisation Manager HOMIJ Major Projects. “We are very enthusiastic about the concept, but for each project we always make a realistic choice between traditional cabling or a pluggable electrical installation. The new construction of the NATO complex lends itself perfectly to the concept of pluggable electrical installation. After all, about three quarters of the electrical installation was under the computer floor. This floor, mounted on legs with 27 centimetres of hollow space underneath, offered an excellent opportunity to make full use of the pluggable electrical installation concept.”

Blackbox

As a preferred supplier of HOMIJ Major Projects, Isolectra was involved in the pre-engineering of the project. “Based on the specifications, we produced the engineering of the pluggable light and floor installation and delivered all components”, says Marcel Backx, Key Account Manager at Isolectra. Traditional wall sockets are therefore no longer to be found in the NATO complex. The new building is equipped with a Wieland pluggable electrical light and floor installation, combined with A. & H. Meijer floor boxes. “Together with Isolectra, we predefined the technical workstations”, Molenaar explains. “This means that for the user, it is just a matter of taking out the floor tile and plugging the equipment into the floor box. The concept offers a high degree of flexibility in terms of the layout of workstations.

According to Backx, the floor boxes used in the NATO complex are of the black box type. “We supply them in a standard configuration, such as for NCIA, but also supply them completely customised depending on the desired application. Such as a combination with a DALI control for the lighting or other specific circuits and controls. The benefit is that all the intelligence is in this box, so installation is just a matter of plug-and-play. And that is also the essence of the concept of a pluggable electrical installation: saving time, and ease of installation.”

Streamer: “The new construction of the NATO complex lends itself perfectly to the concept of pluggable electrical installation.”

Read more about the project Pluggable light and floor installations for NATO The Hague here.

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