Hospital Annual 2 Hour Load Bank SAFETY

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DanielMontes

New member
Location
Dallas Texas
Hello to all.

My name is Daniel Montes and have a safety question.

We have one 800kW standby generator at our small hospital. A two hour annual load bank is needed and the gen technician stated that the standby will be isolated from the hospital. It would take him at least 30 minutes to reconnect the building if we suffered an area power outage.

It's a safety risk question, but I think it's unacceptable to conduct the load bank without the hospital having any backup power source.

In my opinion, a rental may be required to back up the hospital during the load bank.

Do you guys concur? Or is there a way the technician can wire the load bank where the gen can be switched back to the building quickly.

Daniel.
 

texie

Senior Member
Location
Fort Collins, Colorado
Occupation
Electrician, Contractor, Inspector
Hello to all.

My name is Daniel Montes and have a safety question.

We have one 800kW standby generator at our small hospital. A two hour annual load bank is needed and the gen technician stated that the standby will be isolated from the hospital. It would take him at least 30 minutes to reconnect the building if we suffered an area power outage.

It's a safety risk question, but I think it's unacceptable to conduct the load bank without the hospital having any backup power source.

In my opinion, a rental may be required to back up the hospital during the load bank.

Do you guys concur? Or is there a way the technician can wire the load bank where the gen can be switched back to the building quickly.

Daniel.

I would agree. For this reason it is becoming more common place to see permanently installed load banks with automatic switching schemes to allow dropping the load bank and connecting the building load in the event of a power failure.
 

mgookin

Senior Member
Location
Fort Myers, FL
In Florida we have a state agency named "Agency for HealthCare Administration" (ACHA) and they take jurisdiction over hospitals with respect to life safety among many other code requirements. Standby power is one of their areas of regulation and enforcement.

If this were a matter in Florida and I were in your position, I would look to ACHA for guidance on what regulation says that system can't be taken offline unless or until other provisions are met which fulfill the requirement for uninterrupted continuity. They have a phone and they answer it. They want to help. They just want compliance.

I say all this in suggesting you see if your state has a like agency who can provide you with an administrative code section which you can show the company or individual doing your annual testing.
 

LIM

Member
Location
NC
Hello to all.

My name is Daniel Montes and have a safety question.

We have one 800kW standby generator at our small hospital. A two hour annual load bank is needed and the gen technician stated that the standby will be isolated from the hospital. It would take him at least 30 minutes to reconnect the building if we suffered an area power outage.

It's a safety risk question, but I think it's unacceptable to conduct the load bank without the hospital having any backup power source.

In my opinion, a rental may be required to back up the hospital during the load bank.

Do you guys concur? Or is there a way the technician can wire the load bank where the gen can be switched back to the building quickly.

Daniel.

Look at 2013 NFPA 110 8.4.2.2. You must have a way to automatically transfer emergency loads back to the generator during a loss of the normal source. The situation you are describing would be very dangerous. The hospital cannot determine when a normal power loss may happen, or the severity of a patient at the time of the power loss.
 

ron

Senior Member
Even if he uses a portable generator to power the hospital via an ATS while yours is load banked, during the cutover to the portable gen in advance, there will be time when there will be no back up power. That assumes he will even tie in the portable with power on in the ATS
 

ghostbuster

Senior Member
In our area ,if back-up power was unavailable,the hospital director and facility group could be sent to jail according to our hospital government regulations.I know of one hospital director that quit his job due to this huge personal liability concern.
 
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