HV Infrastructure Improvement, Substation and New Paediatric supply

The Objectives

Provide new high voltage (HV) substation to provide new low voltage electrical supply for new paediatric building at major General Hospital.
Ensure compliance with HTM guidance for primary and secondary stand by generator supplies
Deliver a future HV infrastructure
Conduct a feasibility study to enable optimised improvements for future distributed operational HV ring capacity and HV system resilience
Optimise equipment selection, HV route divergence and removal of aged services
Resilient new low voltage distributed supply and optimised equipment design and specification for the new building
Minimise risk whilst completing works including replacement of one of the two existing hospital HV ring feeders
Meet the target completion for both the primary and secondary low voltage (LV) supplies for the new paediatric unit
Provide energy monitoring to assist in managing carbon reduction

Challenges

It was imperative that the completed system complied with the constraints of HTM06-01 (HV) and HTM06-03
Maintaining safely managed and consistent best practice project delivery in line with client expectations in a politically challenging and cost-conscious environment
Identify unknown service routes through GPR ground, HV cable tracing and structural surveys
Determine optimal new HV and LV cable routes, minimising risk to existing congested underground services and day to day operational service delivery within a busy General Hospital during project works
Excavation of cable routes and major equipment deliveries within blue light roads and adjacent to the new build construction site

The Successful Solution

Determined optimised HV transformer capacity, incorporating close coupled LV isolation for ease of future Hospital Estates in house control
Constructed a flexible base HV sub-station, accommodating ease of future additional LV distribution and HV reconfiguration if required
Construction of adjacent compound for low noise 1MVA secondary power generator
Local LV distribution/generator changeover panel incorporating withdraw able replicated breakers for ease of replacement in the event of breaker failure
LV panel construction accommodating non-invasive inspection to minimise planned service down time, increasing system resilience as inspections can regularly be conducted to identify problems before they occur
Secure generator compound construction, accommodating revised pedestrian routes and safe egress from the newly constructed adjacent ambulance bay
LV distribution incorporating full remote monitoring capability via BMS or mobile GPRS network on almost any device, complete with secure data capture and storage for better power management
Provided temporary LV supply to new paediatric unit site during the build to permit Paediatric commissioning to be undertaken without delay
Successful project management throughout with architects, generator and electrical distribution equipment manufacturers, Clients teams, new building construction and M&E install teams, crane delivery teams and ambulance management for agreed finalised mains connection on target to meet building handover date

Thanks to all who played a part in the team effort required to deliver this challenging healthcare project.