Standby power specialist, Dieselec Thistle, has completed a 5,000kVA installation for the £170m extension to Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife.
The 500 bed extension is part of a re-alignment of services by NHS Fife, which has effectively seen PPP vehicle, Consort Healthcare, create an entirely new hospital, with the existing hospital becoming an annexe to the new building. The standby power installation called for three 1,250Kva high voltage duty generators with a fourth to act as a double standby (N+1) in case any of the gen sets should be out of action for repair or maintenance during an outage.
Housed in a new energy centre alongside the hospital’s boilers, biomass plant and CHP, the standby power installation serves the entire Victoria Hospital site and Dieselec Thistle supplied and installed the specified package which included 70dba noise attenuation enclosures, dual redundant starter motors and dual batteries to maximise security of supply. The company also designed a full pro-logic control system (PLC) to ensure seamless automatic trigger of the standby system in the event of mains failure and efficient load sharing.
The installation also includes a SCADA supervisory control system, which was included in the standby power system’s design at the suggestion of Dieselec Thistle to monitor the equipment at all times. This provides warnings of any maintenance issues and provides fault diagnostics so that any problems can be tackled quickly.
Colin Macrae from Consort Healthcare commented, “A system like this not only provides peace of mind in terms of effective standby power, it also dramatically reduces the maintenance burden. Manual testing is not required, routine maintenance is reduced and reactive maintenance is both timely and targeted.”
Dieselec Thistle has also been awarded the maintenance contract for the standby power system by Consort Healthcare as part of the on-going PPP hospital management programme.
