Exchange of experience replaces GOSTs and SNiPs.

The seminar was attended by specialists, group leaders, department heads and leading engineers of design organizations from twenty-two cities of Russia – from Armavir to Arkhangelsk, from Tyumen to Kostroma and Yaroslavl. Design organizations of St. Petersburg were also widely represented. In total, the seminar was attended by more than eighty people.

The topic of the current seminar was designated as «Features of designing various buildings, including intelligent ones.» And this is not accidental. As Olga Mustafayeva, head of the bureau for organizing exhibitions, symposiums and business meetings of LENNIIPROEKT, noted at the opening of the seminar, if we compare a modern building, filled with various communications and devices, with an engineering orchestra, then the first violin in it will be played by electrical networks.

The chief specialist of the LENNIIPROEKT Institute, A. A. Stroganov, under whose leadership the seminar was held, developed methodological recommendations for the design of electrical equipment for buildings and structures especially for this meeting. The analysis of new regulatory and technical documents and the practice of their application resulted in a very lively discussion. Which is not surprising. Today, a paradoxical situation has arisen in the design of electrical networks: with the rapid development of this area, there are catastrophically few regulatory documents applicable to modern reality — most of them were outdated in the last century, newly written ones cannot boast of careful development, and translated Western documents, which are now often tried to be used, need to be adapted to Russian realities.

During the first two days, the participants listened to reports and discussed such topics as lightning protection of buildings, automation and dispatching of engineering equipment, electromagnetic compatibility. The topics of the reports presented at such seminars are formed taking into account the wishes of potential participants, who actively communicate with the organizers during the preparation of the seminar, after its topic is announced on the website and in the specialized press. This time, especially many questions were raised by such actively developing, but still quite new for Russian specialists areas as dispatching and automation of buildings.

The third day was of particular interest to the participants, as a round table entitled «Improving the Quality of Building Electrical Equipment Projects. Basic Expertise Requirements» was held on this day. It is no secret to designers that these requirements are sometimes very contradictory, as a result of which it takes less time to develop a project than to approve it. At the round table, participants had the opportunity to directly ask questions to representatives of Petroelectrosbyt, Lenenergo, the Non-Departmental Expertise and Gosarchstroynadzor. Unfortunately, Rostekhnadzor specialists did not respond to the invitation. However, the fact that so many organizations responsible for expertise were invited to the meeting can already be considered an achievement: until now, designers and experts have not had a chance to directly discuss problems that arise in the process of project approval. The third party participating in the conversation were veterans of design with forty years of experience under their belt.

The experts were given the opportunity to express their main requirements for the submitted projects. It was discovered that misunderstandings exist not only between designers and experts, but also between representatives of different areas of expertise. First of all, the contradictions, as expected, affected the use of regulatory documents.

There are some shortcomings in the legal sense: no matter how many approvals a project has received, if problems arise with the constructed object, only the designer is responsible.

The participants of the round table spoke with some concern about the upcoming introduction of the «single window» principle in project approval. Designed to simplify life for all parties in the process, it could play a cruel joke if the new «rules of the game» are not spelled out in detail and carefully verified. Meanwhile, the law «On technical regulation», adopted back in 2003 and designed to replace the GOSTs, SNIPs and other regulatory documents in force since Soviet times, should, in the best case scenario, only come into effect in 2010 — if by that time the budget has the necessary funds to develop and adopt common technical national regulations. The price of the issue is from 50 to 300 thousand dollars.

Of course, the round table did not resolve pressing issues, but it helped to clearly formulate them and identify the positions of all parties.
Finally, the final impression of the participants of the scientific and practical seminar was a visit to a real operating facility, which was chosen as the Perinnye Ryady Gostiny Dvor, with an inspection of the dispatching systems, automation and other electrical communications.