Supplying power during a hospital upgrade

John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford needed to upgrade its substation to support new facilities, but also needed to be absolutely sure that the backup power supply was going to meet demands.

Any interruptions in supply while working on the upgraded facilities not only risked lives but risked sensitive and sophisticated medical equipment going haywire, too – obviously things that had to be avoided at all costs.

There was a strict policy on generator use so our service engineers did a walkthrough of the site with the relevant Health Technical Memorandum (HTMs) while measuring equipment. After assessing the situation, they returned to our Sutton centre and began testing.

When they were sure they had the right package they returned to the hospital with three 1,850 kVA generators and did even more testing on site. Each generator was tested to 110 per cent capacity for one hour and the whole procedure was witnessed and verified by the team from the NHS Trust estates department – as well as the building contractor for the project.

The generators were in place for a total of four days and were running for eight hours each day with full fuel management support from us. The job ran smoothly with everything going to plan. No power failures occurred and the hospital was able to keep all their services and equipment online during the upgrade period. The John Radcliffe estates team were happy with the outcome – and with our generators and service.