RESILIENCE AND PREPAREDNESS
Above left: Diagnostic imaging equipment like MRIs or CT scanners ‘draws vast amounts of power per session’, ABB stresses. Above right: Lighting control, HVAC, access management, back-up systems, and building analytics, can all be managed through a unified interface, regardless of brand or age.
Nigel Thomas
Nigel Thomas is National Specification and Projects Sales manager at ABB Electrification, ‘an international market leader in electrical distribution and control solutions’. ABB Electrification is a business area of leading global engineering and technology company, ABB. For the last 17 years, Nigel Thomas has been responsible for specification, and now sales, across ABB’s UK infrastructure, building services, and data centre projects. His background is in the sales and marketing of building management and energy systems, lighting solutions, and medium- and low- voltage switchgear, with a focus on shaping the future of Net Zero through the specification of adaptive and people- centric smart buildings. He also has 20 years’
experience leading the coaching and development of sales and specification teams to deliver results, implement commercial B2B agreements, and develop both existing client relationships and new business opportunities.
back-up systems within 12 weeks that were tested for safety and operability in Switzerland prior to deployment. These facilities now enjoy significantly improved energy security for their critical surgical systems, which can now operate without interruption during outages. In Santiago, Chile, ABB deployed a full suite of advanced circuit breakers and power monitoring tools – S750DR SMCBs, Emax 2, and Tmax XT smart breakers – to safeguard every level of power distribution at Felix Bulnes Hospital. The system’s real-time monitoring capabilities allow Facilities managers to anticipate issues well before they can cause downtime. Equally important is the space-saving design, which has helped the hospital reduce its electrical room footprint by 25%, and free up vital capacity elsewhere.
Getting ahead of cyber threats Digital transformation and ‘smart’ hospital systems bring tremendous quality-of-life value to patients and staff, but they also increase risk. In particular, the rise of ransomware has made healthcare one of the top global targets for cyber criminals. While cyberattacks in recent times have focused on digital theft – such as the organised raid of sensitive patient data from the Synnovis blood pathology laboratory in London in June 2024, energy management systems, if poorly secured, could become critical points of vulnerability. Secure-by-design software is therefore essential. ABB’s KNX Data Secure protocol encrypts data transmission across building automation components. Meanwhile, cloud-based solutions like ABB Ability are regularly updated to counter new threats. These are fixes that wouldn’t be possible or timely enough to stop attacks in traditional on-premises architectures. In the UK, where many hospital systems run on legacy or mixed-generation infrastructure, the move to hybrid models is especially important. Partial migration to cloud platforms can yield the benefits of security, scalability, and compliance, without needing the wholesale replacement of existing assets, which could also come with upskilling costs and potential data corruption issues during transferral. In early 2024, the UK Government’s own scenario planning revealed unsettling gaps in our energy resilience strategy. In the event of a national grid outage lasting 48-72 hours, even hospitals may not be protected from initial cuts. Only upon implementing emergency energy codes, possibly days later, would selected priority facilities begin to be shielded from rolling blackouts. Such admissions raise clear questions. If facilities face realistic risk of multi-hour blackouts, how confident can we be in the adequacy of current back-up and continuity systems?
84 Health Estate Journal September 2025
The Government’s response has focused on long-term planning, but as Storm Eowyn proved, weather extremes and ageing grid infrastructure are already testing hospital resilience at the local level, today. The World Health Organization (WHO) frames this issue in unequivocal terms: without reliable electricity, healthcare services cannot be called universal. Many low- and middle-income countries still operate with severe electricity insecurity butut even high-income nations must address their dependency risks, whether those emerge from cyber vulnerabilities, extreme weather, or resource shortages. In every case, the benefits of robust, digital- ready, and low-maintenance energy solutions, are now too great to ignore.
Future-proofing starts now In our increasingly electrified and digitalised world, it is untenable that hospitals – society’s most critical infrastructure, should remain exposed to unpredictable but preventable energy disruptions. Whether it’s through cloud-integrated monitoring, modular UPS resilience, or simply the smarter use of building controls, the same principle applies: better connectivity equals better care. At ABB, we advocate for a shift in how we design, renovate, and manage healthcare environments. Tight budgets and staffing shortages are realities, but resilience need not be expensive when enabled by smart technologies capable of integrating with existing systems. Open protocol platforms provide hospitals with the tools to choose their future. They can retrofit smartly, scale responsibly, and lead in safety, sustainability, and performance. As energy security moves steadily higher up the public agenda, and as digitalisation becomes the norm rather than the frontier, healthcare facilities will only succeed by partnering with experts who understand the full scope of these challenges. Resilient hospitals are not built overnight, but with the
right foundational technologies and partnerships, they can be ready to weather whatever storms may come. Hospitals are centres of hope, care, and dignity. Ensuring the systems that power them do not falter or fail should be our highest priority.
References 1 Squire M, Munsamy M, Lin G, Telukdarie A, Igusa T. Modeling hospital energy and economic costs for COVID-19 infection control interventions. Energy Build 2021; 26: 242:110948.
https://tinyurl.com/694rwjh7
2 Wu HT, Li QS, Dai RC, Liu S, Wu L, Mao W et al. Effects of air- conditioning systems in the public areas of hospitals: A scoping review. Epidemiol Infect 2021: 27:149.
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