POWER AND ENERGY
John East
John East is the critical projects director at Power Continuity Ltd. He has three decades of experience designing and installing critical mission projects across the country, from airports to sensitive government sites. As projects director
within the healthcare sector, he is responsible for delivering absolute power reliability. He personally leads UPS projects teams, ensuring systems are correctly specified, fully redundant, and rigorously tested to support life-critical environments such as operating theatres, ICUs, and diagnostic facilities. John proactively identifies vulnerabilities to eliminate downtime risk, and ensure seamless integration with the existing site critical infrastructure. Over the last 30 years, all his projects have been delivered on time, compliant, and future- proofed. In healthcare, uninterrupted power equals uninterrupted care, and his ‘hands on’ approach ensures that resilience, reliability, and accountability are built into every project he delivers, whether in building or containerised UPS infrastructure solutions.
Separate battery room. Each purpose built UPS container has:
n UPS N+1 or N+2 resilient system. n Separate UPS bypass. n Separate battery room. n A feed and B feed. n Air Con N+1. n Internal lighting and security systems. n 24-7 remote LIVE monitoring. n Capable of up to 50C external temperature and all weather capability.
n No requirement to use valuable building space. UPS containers can be placed in your ‘unusable’ external space and then cabled into the building. Whether temporary, long-term rental, or permanent installations, containerised UPS solutions can accommodate up to one megawatt, and with no planning permission required.
OpEx provides a fixed weekly or monthly or quarterly payment structure for an all inclusive solution. Fixed costs mean that finances can be planned in advance. Here, OpEx wins hands down. CapEx, on the other hand, means an outright purchase. Depending on your NHS financial planning, this need not be a problem.
OpEx long term contracts generally include all parts,
servicing and replacement. These can be one-year, multiple years, even up to 10 years – a cost effective solution where the life cost of a system is known from day one.
OpEx is a useful tool for any NHS Trust financial planning.
UPS service and maintenance Warning – electrical components can and do fail. n A UPS can overheat when fans fail. n Components reach end of life. n Batteries overheat due to bad environment, or due to age.
n Thermal run away. n Water damage, flood, dampness, dust build up.
66 Health Estate Journal March 2026 Routine maintenance ensures optimal performance.
n An overloaded UPS will drop load. n Air con failure will cause a UPS to close down.
Having a routine maintenance plan in place ensures optimal performance. As well as providing both an advanced warning and peace of mind, knowing that should a power outage occur, your UPS will instantly without any break support your critical load 24 hours a day.
Have you ever had a UPS fail? This happened to the University of Liverpool Foundation Trust Hospital in 2025. Although not under contract at the time, we received an emergency call request – could we replace a main UPS system that had failed at a hospital in Liverpool, on the same day? No other UPS company could offer a response. We immediately offered to help. By the end of that day, a brand new UPS was installed and operational. Every critical site needs to understand what response options are available should an emergency situation happen. Never leave things to chance – vulnerable sites need a guaranteed response, with equipment available immediately.
Generators Generators are a critical part of your uninterruptible campus power protection. For sure, every NHS trust has generators. These are for emergency power during any sudden power outage. Multiple site-specified generators can be diesel or gas sets. Recent harsh winter storms have seen UK power cuts.
You have seen these scenes in the media. Sadly, not every generator started first time, when needed. Generator service maintenance is just as important as ensuring that each UPS is ‘fit for purpose’. Hence never neglect servicing. Better still always carry out weekly off load tests as well as monthly on load test. Record the results. File them where the campus team can access them. Regular servicing with annual load banking of each generator will provide additional reassurance, that when
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