Power cuts in the operating theatre and intensive care unit can have dramatic consequences. Due to the unstable public power supply in Tanzania, the St. Walburg's Hospital has to cope with up to 20 power cuts a day, some of which last longer. For the patients on site, the failure of medical equipment is life-threatening. To ensure that this danger no longer exists, the Artemed Foundation carried out a comprehensive refurbishment of the hospital's IT and electrical systems. The technology for the new uninterruptible emergency power supply was supplied by Greenakku, a specialist in sustainable energy solutions.
A new fail-safe energy system
The centrepiece is the uninterruptible power supply system, consisting of a network of six inverters (VICTRON Quattro 48/15000) and a large number of PylonTech US2000 lithium batteries. The newly installed technology largely replaces the old emergency generator running on diesel, which took some time during each power failure until the operating theatres, including the computers, could start up again.
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The new system ensures that the hospital's important power circuits are switched over to the high-capacity batteries in the event of a failure of the public grid. This happens in a few milliseconds without interruption and fully automatically. The VICTRON inverters notice the loss of public power and divert the hospital's supply directly to the PylonTech batteries. Only in the case of rare, very long-lasting power cuts is the diesel emergency generator still needed for support and automatically started when the batteries reach a low level. With this equipment, St. Walburg`s Hospital now has a smart and reliable system that will work for years, around the clock and without technical failures, even under extreme environmental conditions.
Next step: a solar power system
To ensure that the batteries now installed are no longer dependent on expensive mains electricity or diesel generators, the Artemed Foundation, with the support of Greenakku, is planning to supply and install an adequately dimensioned solar system. This will ensure that the bush hospital will be supplied with environmentally friendly electricity for the next 25 to 30 years. Since St. Walburg`s Hospital is located slightly south of the equator, the solar panels will be installed in such a way that they can supply solar power for the entire day. This will supply the important electrical consumers in the hospital during the day and charge the lithium batteries with the surplus solar power. The solar system will be designed to provide an output of about 100 kilowatts. (mfo)
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