Switchgear

Switchgear is the assembly of circuit breakers, busbars, and protection and control equipment that distributes electrical power through a facility. It receives the incoming power and isolates faults before they cascade into an outage. In a data center, medium-voltage switchgear (rated roughly 1kV-38kV, with 11kV, 20kV, or 33kV common on campuses) sits between the utility substation or on-site generators and the step-down transformers; low-voltage switchgear (under 1kV) then feeds the PDUs, UPS systems, and busways inside data halls. Each switchgear lineup typically comprises incoming, outgoing, metering, and bus-tie sections, and its configuration — single-ended, dual-ended, or ring-bus — determines how much of the facility stays powered during a fault or planned maintenance. Rising AI-cluster power densities have pushed campus operators toward higher medium-voltage ratings and larger switchgear lineups to move gigawatt-scale loads without a proportional increase in cable runs.