Originally opened in 1840 one of London’s largest and busiest teaching hospitals contacted Powerhire for the provision of a rental generator whilst a planned upgrade was carried out on their permanent back-up generator. They also required a loadbank to commission the upgrade works once completed on the back-up generator system.
This hospital provides an acute care facility in south east London serving an inner city population of 700,000, it also serves as a tertiary referral centre in certain specialities to millions of people in southern England as well as receiving patients from overseas. It is one of the biggest providers of specialised services in England, it is one of the largest teaching hospitals in London and has an extensive research facility, which form’s one of the UK’s first Academic Health Science Centres.
It was within one of the teaching and research buildings of the Hospital where essential maintenance and modernisation of their permanent back-up generator was due to be undertaken. Understandably stringent planning was required and seamless liaison with the Hospital’s Management was crucial to ensure that whilst the permanent back-up set was taken off-line the rental generator was installed as a temporary back-up power solution.
Once the 300kVA rental generator, together with fuel tank and the respective cabling had been connected to the Hospitals system the first stage of the upgrade maintenance works and modifications were carried out to the site’s generator engine as well as the installation of a new control panel. Utilising the loadbank pre-commissioning was undertaken and a simulated mains failure test carried out.
The replacement of two existing obsolete LV switchboards was then carried out, the old changed for new ones with the facility for short term mains paralleling to enable a seamless soft changeover of power in the event of a mains outage. On the completion of the works the loadbank commissioning of the upgraded back-up generator system to prove its efficiency and functionality was successfully completed to the satisfaction of the client.
