Article Date: 1st February 2012

Aggreko Provides Vital Support To Great Ormond Street Hospital

Power Back-Up - Temperature Control Systems - Temporary Power

Aggreko, the global leader in temporary power and temperature control systems, has supplied a back-up power solution to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, enabling vital healthcare services to continue uninterrupted during major redevelopment works.

Following construction of the new Morgan Stanley Clinical Building, part of a £343m regeneration scheme at the world famous children’s hospital, Aggreko engineers provided technical expertise and project management to deliver a temporary standby power solution during the integration of the new facility into the site’s high voltage power supply.

With two days scheduled to complete the power connection works, the project had to be planned meticulously. “Site access was a particular challenge because of space restrictions within the hospital compound,” said Jonathan Paradi, senior project engineer for Great Ormond Street hospital. “We also needed to maintain clear pedestrian and vehicular thoroughfares at all times.

“Having worked with Aggreko on many previous projects at Great Ormond Street Hospital, I had confidence that their team had the expertise to deliver what was required. Thanks to Aggreko engineers’ project management and their collaboration with the contractors and ourselves, we successfully completed the connection work in less than 24 hours.”

For the 24 hours that the site was disconnected from the mains supply, Great Ormond Street Hospital operated in “standby major incident status”’ with power supplied by its own standby generators. Aggreko’s temporary power solution provided a crucial back-up power supply for the hospital buildings should the hospital’s generators have failed.

In order to minimise traffic disruption, Aggreko’s logistics team delivered the temporary power equipment on a Sunday, managing necessary road closures and diversions. A 1250 kVA standby generator and 1500 kVA transformer were positioned in the hospital’s central courtyard using a crane and wheeled ramp system to manoeuvre the equipment along a narrow pathway and through an arched tunnel. Aggreko then commissioned the equipment, connecting into the hospital’s ring main.

Paul Cotton, sales engineer for Aggreko, said: “Aggreko has years of experience in the healthcare sector, which means we fully understand the challenges of operating in a hospital environment and have the expertise to provide critical back-up power. Following successful completion of this project, we are now discussing contingency planning solutions with the Great Ormond Street Hospital team, which will provide a robust strategy to deliver temporary power in future emergencies.”

Great Ormond Street Hospital’s specialist services see many extremely sick children, from all over the UK. Over sixty per cent of the hospital’s patients would be considered Intensive Care or High Dependency patients in a normal hospital, so any disruption to power would be clinically unacceptable.

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