Innovation in Global Power - Parsons Brinckerhoff

Thermal – Achieving New Efficiencies, Reducing Carbon Emissions
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planning phase, our team:
• Performed detailed surveys and consulted with facility
administrators, maintenance and operation staff and other
personnel to gain a thorough understanding of specific
functions in each area of each facility
• Identified and documented the location of all essential
equipment, and critical and life-safety loads
• Identified the local source of normal and emergency power
serving all these loads
• Identified areas in each facility that would serve as “swing
space” for locating temporary power distribution equipment.
This planning allowed us to produce drawings specifying
construction phasing for accurate, detailed equipment
removals and relocations and for temporary power. It also
enabled us to identify windows of opportunity for scheduled,
short-duration interruptions of power to minimize impacts
on facility operations.
Bellevue Hospital. After our analysis of the existing and
planned electrical loads, we discovered that the hospital’s
existing four 400 kW generators and one 600 kW generator
could not accommodate a total failure of the normal electrical
power feed from the local utility. We proposed:
• Replacing the 400 kW generators with four new 725 kW
generators and one 1500 kW generator to provide
enough power for the existing and future loads. These
would be installed and synchronized with the remaining
600 kW generator.
• Replacing the existing emergency switchgear.
• Modifying and upgrading 35 of the 47 existing automatic
transfer switches (ATSs) to accommodate future loads.
• Upgrading various systems, including the fire pump, fire
detection system, fire alarms, and alarms for medical gas
and vacuum systems.
Various components of the emergency electrical equipment
are located throughout the hospital rather than at centralized
locations. Further, Bellevue Hospital is America’s oldest
public hospital, and now has little room for larger equipment.
We collaborated with facility management and the manufacturer
of the switchgear, ATSs, and generators to fit the equipment
in the available space. (For example, once we determined
how much space was available for switchgear, manufacturers
worked within those restrictions to develop switchgear
frames (boxes) that fit.) The four 725 kW generators will
be installed on the 13th floor close to the existing 600 kW
generator, while the 1500 kW generator was planned to be
installed in the sub-cellar. The paralleling switchgear for these
generators is on the 13th floor.
Toward the end of the design process, DASNY asked that we
revise our design for the sub-cellar 1500 kW generator to
offer it more protection against flood damage. We raised the
generator six feet (2 m) and placed it on a new platform. It will
be supported in an areaway next to an on-ramp along the
FDR Drive, a heavily traveled highway on Manhattan’s east side.
The 47 ATSs are located in electrical rooms throughout the
hospital. Our engineers had to arduously examine the available
riser space to determine where the replacement switches
could be located. This effort required the engineers to visit
each floor of the hospital and venture into areas that required
special security by the hospital or NYC Department of
Corrections because of the patients that occupied those areas.
Elmhurst Hospital. As was the case at Bellevue, Elmhurst
Hospital’s current generators could not accommodate a total
failure of the normal electrical power feed from the local utility.
We proposed installing generators at three locations, each with
different setups, and making additional upgrades, as follows:
• Replacing one 350 kW generator with a new 600 kW
generator and synchronizing it with an existing 400 kW
generator
• Replacing another 350 kW generator with a new 600 kW
generator
• Synchronizing three existing 600 kW generators with one
new 1500 kW generator
• Upgrading 16 of the 30 existing ATSs and adding five new
ATSs to accommodate future loads
• Upgrading various systems, including the fire pump, fire
detection system and fire alarms.
The generators at the three locations will be activated based
on the particular load that was lost and the size of the
power outage. If for some reason the local generator cannot
supply enough load, it will activate and synchronize with the
1500 kW generator. This built in redundancy helps to assure
that patients, doctors, and hospital staff will not notice the
change from normal to emergency power.
While Elmhurst is not as tall a building as Bellevue and has its
emergency power equipment at three centralized locations,
these locations are located at nearly opposite ends of the
hospital. This configuration requires that cable between the
generators and paralleling switchgear be run through the
cable support system in the sub-basement. The conduit runs
are layered many times over and noticeably reduce the height
of portions of the sub-basement corridors. An electrician at
this hospital told us that the supports for the conduit had to
be replaced recently because the weight of the conduit caused
the supports to buckle. This reduced the available space for
new conduit and made it more challenging to run new feeders.
PB worked closely with facility management and its electricians
to make the most efficient use of the hospital’s remaining
space for new feeders and equipment.
17 PB Network #68 / August 2008