When renovating an active hospital, the design and construction team must carefully consider how to plan and execute the project to ensure patient safety, continuity of care, and regulation compliance. Schedule and budget adherence are also critical factors.
Most recently, HEAPY Solutions completed a major overhaul of the power infrastructure for a prominent hospital in Southwest Ohio, replacing the existing substation. The challenge was to execute the replacement while ensuring uninterrupted hospital operations, requiring meticulous planning and coordination.
Enhancing Power Infrastructure
The original substation was a single medium voltage to 480V transformer and a centrally fed 480V distribution line. A second medium-voltage bay was added, bolstering existing infrastructure and creating a double-ended substation, which is more resilient and adaptable to future use and expansion. Aging equipment was also replaced to ensure that future repair and replacement was possible and cost effective.
Closed transition transfer switches on critical loads permit transfer of electrical loads without interruption to services. Crucial upgrades to Automatic Transfer Switches (ATSs) also provided better services to critical power system, building UPS systems, equipment branches, and elevator transfer switches.
The hospital now has a double ended substation that has full monitoring capability. These upgrades allow the healthcare facility to better serve patients and the surrounding community.
Leveraging Temporary Power Solutions
During the replacement work, all 25 electrical loads from the substation needed temporary distribution to keep the hospital functioning smoothly. All 480V loads were refed, including normal feeds for life safety systems, critical branch power, equipment load power, and normal power feeds.
This system powered the entire hospital, including critical life safety systems and ICU units. The challenge was to ensure uninterrupted power while replacing the substation in its existing location.
To address this, HEAPY Solutions devised a comprehensive plan in collaboration with Chapel Electric and Ohio CAT. Rental equipment and repurposed infrastructure components were strategically employed to temporarily feed all loads, enabling the seamless replacement of the substation, integration of the new medium voltage bay, and installation of the new substation and ATS equipment in their final locations.
This complex task spanned almost two months and involved seven weekend shutdowns.
Minimizing Disruptions
HEAPY Solutions prioritized minimizing disruptions to hospital operations throughout the project. Outages on non-critical loads were limited to weekend nights to minimize impact, while ATS loads were strategically managed to ensure outages of 30 minutes or less.
Over the course of two months, this meticulous planning and coordination ensured that the hospital continued to deliver uninterrupted care to patients.
The successful transformation of the hospital’s power infrastructure demonstrates the importance of collaboration and careful planning. HEAPY Solutions effectively replaced the power main substation, expanded the infrastructure, and installed the necessary equipment while ensuring minimal disruptions to hospital operations.
For more than 30 years, HEAPY and HEAPY Solutions have partnered with regional and national healthcare facilities to execute comprehensive facility improvements aimed at enhancing sustainability and resiliency, while prioritizing patient outcomes and community.
Contact our team today.
[tmm name=”larry-cotterman-merritt-roseberry-kettering-health”]
