Taranaki Base Hospital power supply turned off to test emergency energy centre

It was a heart-in-mouths moment at Taranaki Base Hospital when the power supply was completely disconnected to test its new emergency energy centre.

Emergency management lead at Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora in Taranaki, Cameron Grant-Fargie, said turning off the power to a hospital was not something to be taken lightly.

“Prior to the testing, we undertook a huge amount of preparatory work to minimise any disruption to clinical care.

“This included working with all clinical units to examine and plan how they would deliver clinical care without power or by relying on large batteries as backups.”

Grant-Fargie said Te Whatu Ora was thrilled with how it went.

“Just as we had planned, the hospital solely operated on power produced from our Energy Centre for 30 minutes. What’s more there was no disruption to acute surgeries or other sensitive clinical procedures.”

Grant-Fargie said the two new 1.8MVa diesel generators could run for 72 hours before needing to be refuelled.

They could restore power to the hospital within seconds, in the event of an outage, ensuring all clinical services could continue as normal with more power capacity than it needed to operate.

Grant-Fargie said it was great news for the province to have the hospital energy centre up and running.

“Considering there is a 50 percent chance Taranaki Maunga will erupt within the next 50 years, it’s something we need to be prepared for.”

The energy centre had been designed and built specifically to improve the overall resilience of the hospital’s campus-wide infrastructure and ensure a power supply to was always maintained, even in the event of a volcanic eruption, said Grant-Fargie.

“It’s reassuring to know that in the event of an emergency or an eruption, our hospital will be able to continue to function as normal, with powered equipment operating. In terms of a resilient health facility, we’re right up there.”

The commissioning of the energy centre involved years of planning and a collaborative effort from the hospital rebuild team (Project Maunga), including Leighs Construction, Wells Instrument and Electrical, and the hospital’s onsite engineering team.

Historically, the hospital had a single emergency generator that had substantially upgraded for the New East Wing Building, which was scheduled to open next year, because the hospital’s overall power demand will increase significantly,

The existing generator would now be refurbished and installed alongside the two new generators in the Energy Centre to ensure there was always greater capacity than what was required to function.