Avoiding the catastrophic impact of power outages

Paul Brickman, Sales and Marketing director at Crestchic Loadbanks, explores how hospitals can ensure that their back-up power systems are reliable should the worst happen.

In recent years, the global demand for power has risen sharply. A new report from global research consultancy, McKinsey, predicts that global power consumption will ‘almost double by 2050’. The increased focus on electrification and technology is as evident in the healthcare industry as it is in our home lives, with technologically advanced equipment increasingly reliant on power to operate.

To meet these needs, as well as the ongoing mission to make the move to green sources of power generation, the UK’s energy mix is going through a transition. With ambitious targets in place, the UK is transitioning from fossil fuelgenerated power to wind and other renewable sources of energy. When harnessing these natural sources of power – which are reliant on the wind blowing and the sun shining – managing a stable and constant supply can be more challenging. In addition to the fluctuations known to be associated with more intermittent, weather-based power sources, lockdown has shown that we cannot always easily predict demand patterns. Consequently, grid balancing has become an increasingly important focus for grid operators, whose role is to closely match the supply of energy to demand. Even a 1% deviation from the network’s frequency of 50 Hz has the potential to damage equipment and infrastructure and cause power failures.