Digital Master Controller Installation at Gloucester Royal Hospital

Gloucester Managed Services Capital Team installed a new Digital Master Controller at the Gloucester Royal Hospital (GRH) in April 2023.

This project was initiated to ensure that the electrical resilience of GRH is maintained through the installation of a replacement control system to back-up high-voltage generators. These generators switch on automatically and generate electricity if there is a power cut and thereby back up the electrical system for the hospital. This ensures that the hospital can continue to function with minimal interruption to all the items that are reliant on electricity.

The project was delivered over a six-month period and entailed the replacement of the obsolete controls to the generators which had been identified as a risk to the Trust. The project was planned to minimise the risk to the hospital and not cause nuisance power interruptions which would impact site activity.

The project was immensely technical and involved a complex series of steps to switch the power supply from the existing generators to seven temporary emergency standby generators and the associated high voltage substation that was required to by-pass the existing system and to maintain the electrical standby measures to support the hospital activity. The Orchard Car Park was commandeered to accommodate the temporary generators. The existing switchboard to the generators was isolated to enable the controller upgrade and subsequent generator commissioning.

Adrian Weir was the Project Manager and was in attendance over nine weekends and he wrote the complex safety switching programmes. He oversaw each of the twenty-seven switching steps over the course of the six-month project including the testing of the temporary generators and the eventual switching on of the new controller. Each step had to be minutely planned and executed to the second so as to protect the supply to the hospital. Chris Gough assisted as the second High Voltage electrical Authorised Person to complete the work.

The project was delivered successfully and has ensured that the N+1 electrical capacity of the site is maintained.