EMERGENCY RESPONSE
Hospital 2,000 Amp Bus Duct Failure
Emergency Call:
Water penetrated a 2,000 amp electrical bus duct at a major CT hospital early on a Sunday morning. Dinto management and field support were on site within an hour, and following an initial assessment, additional Dinto resources were called in.
Challenges Faced:
The affected electrical bus provided generator power to an emergency switchgear which provides power in critical areas during a power outage. There was an immediate risk created by the damaged bus duct. In the event of a power outage, the hospital would lack the back–up power necessary to support patients.
Scope of Work:
Several things had to happen quickly. The damaged bus had to be taken apart in order to understand the extent of the damage. Two 1 megawatt temporary generators along with 12,000 feet of temporary power cables had to be procured and brought to the site. The bus bars inside of the Emergency Distribution gear had to be removed, and new ones fabricated with lugs mounted on them. This was to allow us to terminate the temporary power cables we were bringing in. This required having one of our vendors open up his fabrication department on a Sunday.
This temporary system was left in place for 6 weeks while the bus duct was removed and rebuilt.
The refurbished bus duct was reinstalled, megger tested, and then put back on line.