CSE Pure Power - Summer 2008 - (Page 26)

❯❯ PURE POWER // SUMMER 2008 26 healthcare story Tying uninterruptible power supply remote monitoring and alarm features into the backup building automation system greatly improves power system reliability and availability. many batteries you can ﬁt into the room. Rotary UPS units use the inertia of a spinning ﬂywheel to provide power for short durations. How does that provide emergency power? When power is provided to the UPS, a small electric motor spins a large, massive ﬂywheel. Then, if the UPS loses its power feed, the inertia of the disc keeps it spinning, which turns the motor into a small generator, generating electrical power until friction overtakes the disc’s inertia and stops it from spinning. The advantage is that the rotary UPS takes up far less space than the batteries of a traditional UPS. The disadvantage is that the duration of the power is usually short—about 15 to 20 sec. But how much time to you really need? Many hospital CIOs believe they need enough UPS power to be able to perform a safe shutdown of all of the equipment —often 20, 30, even up to 40 min. That’s a lot of batteries. However, if the hospital has multiple engine-generators, if the engine-generators are properly maintained, and the UPS systems are fed by a high-priority emergency branch (usually the critical branch)—in other words, if the emergency system and UPS can be reasonably relied on to come back online within 10 sec. of a power outage—40 min. of battery power might not be necessary. Remote monitoring of UPS and the batteries is another essential piece of the reliability pie. Too often, an unknown and undiscovered problem within the UPS or battery system can cripple the data center when power is lost. Everyone thinks the data center equipment is being safely supported and backed up by the UPS. In reality, it may not be the case, because the battery charger has failed, or the batteries have been drained, or any one of a dozen problems have happened that nobody knows about—until it’s time for the UPS to do its job—and then it’s too late. By specifying and designing remote alarm features in the UPS—power availability, battery status, charger status—and tying these alarms into the building automation system (BAS) or other 24-hour monitored system, the hospital can easily keep an eye on the status of the UPS system and know they can count on the unit when they need it. LONG-TERM OUTAGES In the coastal Southeast, susceptible to the wrath and fury of hurricanes, emergency power systems often go above and beyond code minimum requirements. Many hospital administrators and facility directors are asking themselves and their engineers: What do we need in emergency power in order to continue to operate our hospital if utility power is out for a week or more? While things like lighting and power for medical equipment are at the top of the list, HVAC systems (including cooling), water supply, sanitary systems, and even data are also essential for a modern hospital to operate and be fully functional during an extended utility power outage. Is the data center located above the ﬂood plane or in the basement? We Reliable system saves cash At a newly constructed hospital, the 30,000-sq-ft. data center is located on the fourth ﬂoor of the main hospital building. The data center is served by three battery-powered UPS units (no redundancy), which are fed by a dedicated critical branch automatic transfer switch (ATS). This critical branch ATS is fed by the hospital’s emergency distribution system—the heart of which is three 2-MW paralleled engine-generators. Because of the high reliability of the engine-generator system, the hospital was able to downsize the size of the UPS systems in the data center to 14 min. of backup time, which resulted in a signiﬁcant cost savings. www.purepowermagazine.com http://www.purepowermagazine.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CSE Pure Power - Summer 2008

CSE Pure Power - Summer 2008 Contents In the News Industry Roundup Risk Assessments for COPS Grounding Requires More Power Systems to Protect Healthcare Important Changes Coming in NFPA 70E A Look at Arc-Resistant Switchgear Agencies and Associations New Products Ad Index

CSE Pure Power - Summer 2008

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