Harrowing television images of the evacuation of a number of New York hospitals during last October’s Hurricane Sandy will no doubt have prompted many estates managers to reconsider the adequacy and resilience of their emergency power supply.
Here, Chris Marsland, BEng (Hons) CEng MIET, technical director for cogeneration system specialist, ENER-G Combined Power, considers how to make best use of combined heat and power (CHP) systems in a power failure. He makes the case for keeping more hospital services in operation by adapting CHP units to support traditional diesel back-up generation.
Asignificant proportion of large hospitals have combined heat and power (CHP) sets providing efficient thermal and electrical energy. These CHP sets can be operated in ‘island’ mode – that is without reference to the incoming mains electricity supply – in much the same way as standby diesel generator sets. In the event of mains power supply failure, hospitals are familiar with using diesel generators to provide electricity for the essential loads. However, it is very costly to provide electricity supplies to the whole of the site, so most of the ‘day-to-day’ functions shut down, and those essential ones are often limited in capacity, with extra strain on generators due to increasing site load. Meanwhile, the CHP generators are typically standing idle. These units could, with a moderate amount of adaptation, provide electricity for the less essential aspects of the hospital’s function, thus enabling the continued use of the premises, and realising extra benefit from costly assets. This article looks at how CHP systems can be adapted, and at the issues that healthcare estates managers should consider to improve back-up power supply.
No ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach
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