
Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois, US, has selected GE’s emergency critical power system for critical back-up power.
The 664-bed hospital will use the system to maintain operations without interruptions caused by utility power failures.
GE’s emergency power system, designed to restore power to all life safety and critical loads, provides emergency and back-up power to the 13-building hospital from a central energy plant within ten seconds or less.
GE Energy Management chief marketing officer Jake Ring said medical centres are under pressure to deliver higher standards of care to more people at a lower cost.
"This requires a safe, reliable and efficient supply of electric power. Virtually every piece of equipment in hospitals – from the bed in the patient’s room to the MRI in the radiology department – is powered by electricity," Ring added.
GE’s multimode UPS technology is designed to deliver uninterrupted power to Rush University Medical Center’s telecommunications systems in its East Tower building.
The UPS system, offering 99% efficiency in eBoost mode, is a key feature of a centralised energy plant that began operating at the hospital in January 2012.
The new energy plant, part of the hospital’s ongoing $1bn Rush University Medical Center transformation programme, connects each of the campus buildings, excluding individual building control centres and allowing the hospital to control its regular and emergency power systems.
Rush University Medical Center medical center engineering spokesperson Mike Craig said, "We worked with GE to design a critical power system that will provide vital emergency power to our hospital in the event of a local power outage."
Image: The East Tower of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. Photo courtesy of Nathan Hicks.