ELECTRICAL RESILIENCE
the earthing points on your building or equipment? A managed programme should be in place, and NHS Estates managers are increasingly turning to specialists like Quartzelec to undertake the often complex calculations needed to help develop and install both direct and non-isolated protection solutions to ensure they keep up to date with requirements.
Quartzelec supported its NHS Trust client in delivering The Mexborough Elective Orthopaedic Centre of Excellence, part of Montagu Hospital in Mexborough.
had already been completed off site within the pre-fabrication to minimise disruption to existing scheduled procedures.” Necessary works needn’t take months,
or even years, to plan and complete. When an NHS hospital in the North West needed to carry out planned ‘intrusive’ maintenance of its main LV switchgear, Quartzelec stepped in to carry out the task over just two planned evening shifts. The building was being supplied via two ABB 1250 kVA dry resin transformers, that in turn supply two main LV panels. Over two planned evening shifts, both the A and B panels were individually isolated, with all affected sub-circuits re-supplied via local section boards, allowing the servicing – including the interrogation of all air circuit breakers, to be achieved. As part of this project detailed
recordings of the protective devices, ratings, and settings, were similarly included, and a full report summary outlining the overall condition of the switchgear was issued upon completion. Thermographic imaging was also captured prior to isolation of the main supplies, with all connections and torque settings inspected, and each cubicle thoroughly cleaned, confirming that the LV infrastructure was in a satisfactory condition and fit for continued use. At another West Yorkshire Hospital, the implementation of a programme of intrusive switchgear maintenance to the main SS1 sub-station and the LV panel that supplies a mental health unit, where continuity of supply is crucial, was a key requirement. Following a sub-station distribution site survey, including a load appraisal, a plan was established that necessitated the introduction of a 200 kVA AMF generator package to ensure the continuity of supply to these critical services during a 10-hour window, while the intrusive switchgear maintenance to the SS1 sub-station LV panel was carried out and completed. A 200 A supply was also installed into the essential side of the panel board supplying the mental health block, via a 200 A MCCB to BS 60947/2,
64 Health Estate Journal September 2024
feeding a 250 A switch fuse to facilitate the temporary generator connection point. It was soon agreed that this installation solution would remain a permanent addition to the electrical infrastructure, enhancing the site’s ability to provide continuous clinical delivery, and underpinning the resilience of the mental health unit. The site’s essential intrusive switchgear maintenance is an essential component needed to ensure continuity of supply, without compromising patient safety.
n External factors One of the greatest risks to electrical infrastructure integrity is from lightning strikes. While lightning poses significant risk to many critical systems, inspecting and maintaining lightning protection systems is often overlooked. Every year the UK experiences approaching 300,000 lightning counts, with a heavy thunderstorm day typically generating over 10,000 strikes. Each of these huge electrostatic discharges commonly generates around a gigajoule – more than enough to knock out complete electrical systems. Adequate earthing has to be in place and regularly maintained, as detailed in BS EN 62305:2011, but when was the last time you considered or inspected
Chris Rose and Quartzelec
Chris Rose, Quartzelec’s Business manager for its Hamilton and Manchester operations, has more than 30 years of direct industry experience designing and delivering HV and LV solutions, and for the past few years has been not only spearheading the Group’s business activities within its growing NHS Trust customer base, but also managing two of the Group’s business operations.
Quartzelec has directly supported and undertaken projects for around one in four of all the NHS Trusts across the UK, collectively worth approaching £10 m of business each year, in addition to supporting other valuable customers. These include MoD and many of the key players in the power generation and renewables, utilities, construction, manufacturing, and oil and gas sectors.
Conclusions In today’s rapidly changing landscape, Estates managers and specialist service engineers often struggle to keep up with workloads and the increasing levels of compliance that go with them. That’s why our skilled teams are increasingly being called upon to help meet modified infrastructure requirements. If your Trust needs to improve the
power management and distribution infrastructure in order to keep up with changing demand for energy around the site, wants to expand, to integrate new resources and capabilities within the existing power distribution network, or needs support in a crisis situation, Quartzelec has the knowledge, experience, certification, and qualified engineers, to develop and deliver solutions that could see you through the next couple of decades and beyond.
References 1 Estates Returns Information Collection, Summary page and dataset for ERIC 2022/23 – NHS England Digital, 14 December 2023. https://tinyurl. com/5n8sah5p
2 PM confirms £3.7 billion for 40 hospitals in biggest hospital building programme in a generation.
GOV.UK, 2 October 2020.
https://tinyurl.com/5aph25ed
3 Crumbling concrete: Raac found in 18 more hospitals in England. BBC News online, 20 October 2023. https://www.
bbc.com/news/health-67168228
4 Picken A. All new NHS building projects in Scotland put on hold. BBC News online, 19 February 2024.
https://www.bbc.com/ news/uk-scotland-68227448
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