The Challenge
The hospital's electrical infrastructure serves four operating theatres, a 24-bed ICU, neonatal care and imaging equipment that cannot tolerate a supply interruption beyond 10 seconds. The emergency power design therefore had to address three constraints simultaneously.
50°C ambient operation
Summer temperatures regularly exceed 48°C. Standard radiators would derate significantly, creating shutdown risk during the same grid instability that makes standby power essential.
75 dB(A) at 7m noise limit
The available installation area was only 22 meters from the emergency entrance and inpatient windows, requiring hospital-grade acoustic treatment.
No single point of failure
The essential load is 560kW. Either 600kW prime-rated genset must carry the full load alone, with the second unit providing genuine N+1 redundancy rather than load-sharing dependency.
The Solution
We supplied two containerized 750kVA generator sets built around the Cummins KTA38-G2 platform. Its 600kW prime rating allows one unit to carry the complete 560kW essential load at 93% capacity, within continuous prime duty limits.
- 01High-ambient cooling: 50°C tropical radiators with oversized cores, validated by factory full-load heat-run testing.
- 02Acoustic enclosure: Two-stage intake and discharge attenuation with 100mm rockwool-lined panels, achieving 74 dB(A) at 7m.
- 03Auto-parallel control: Both units start on mains failure. The first stable unit closes onto the bus and accepts load; the second synchronizes within 15 seconds.
- 04Fuel autonomy: 1,100L base tanks per unit plus a 10,000L bulk tank and automatic transfer pumps provide 72 hours at average essential load.
- 05Desert protection: Heavy-duty two-stage air filtration with restriction indicators protects the engines in Gulf sand and dust conditions.
Commissioning Results
8.4s
Mains failure to load acceptance; requirement ≤10s
4 hours
100% load-bank test at 46°C ambient; temperatures within limits
110%
One-hour overload test passed in accordance with ISO 8528
17%
Voltage dip on a 50% block load step; recovered to ±1% within 3 seconds
Measured acoustic performance: 74 dB(A) at 7m, below the 75 dB(A) contract limit and suitable for the hospital's emergency-department location.
Project Gallery
Operational Result
Since commissioning, the system has responded to six utility outages with zero failed starts and no interruption to critical care services. Weekly automated exercise runs are supervised through the DSE synchronizing controllers, giving the facility engineering team a clear record of system readiness.