Reliable, Flexible, and Cost Effective
While exploring technology options that would provide its engineers maximum protection from arc flashes, Salem Hospital came across a solution that answered that need, offering many other benefits as well.
Monday, June 30, 2008
By Ed Ritchie
Every business has different primary motivators for upgrading its equipment. For Salem Hospital, in Salem, OR—a not-for-profit facility operating the busiest emergency department in the state—the main priority was to increase safety for electricians and engineering staff. And, since it is nonprofit and has no plans of selling the business to another company down the line, the hospital was also thinking long term. What equipment would best meet their safety and energy needs, offer them the most value for the money, and be able to last the long haul? To answer these questions, the hospital turned to Smith Seckman Reid Inc. (SSR), headquartered in Nashville, TN, to help them explore some options.
Due to the hospital’s campus-style environment, with various power needs spread throughout the grounds, a comprehensive power management system made a lot of sense. When SSR suggested the Entellisys low-voltage switchgear to the hospital in 2005, the technology was new and the hospital had never heard of it before. So, Tom Bickett, director of facilities management at Salem Hospital, and Greg Gloe, engineering manager at Salem Hospital, took a trip out to the General Electric Co. (GE) plant to evaluate the functionality of the system and the benefits it could provide.
Impressed with what they saw, the hospital decided to install three Entellisys systems (which all worked together as a whole) at the hospital’s central energy plant, which was in the process of being built. These systems went live in 2006. The function of the central energy plant is to distribute energy to other buildings throughout the hospital campus. Along with providing greater safety protection for electricians, the GE Entellisys low-voltage switchgear from GE Consumer & Industrial provides more reliability, flexibility, and ease of operation and maintenance—all at maximum cost effectiveness. Satisfied with the results of the new system, the hospital is now gearing up to install five more Entellisys units in the new patient care tower, which is under construction now and set to open in Spring 2009.
Although there are other manufacturers with systems similar to the Entellisys, SSR favored GE for several reasons. First, SSR had an ongoing relationship with GE and was also already familiar with the Entellisys. Second, only GE offers the Entellisys architecture.
While SSR did not pressure the hospital to go with GE’s Entellisys, it did seem the most practical choice. Ultimately, it wasn’t any one factor that made the Entellisys the most appealing option for the hospital—it was a combination of all the benefits, factored in along with the cost—that led to the final decision.
When we looked at all manufacturers and what they could offer, the GE Entellisys seemed to have the most to offer for the money,” says Bickett.
“In addition, the Entellisys gives us a lot of flexibility, which is important considering the size of our campus,” adds Gloe. “The fact that it allows us to monitor the system through various areas of the campus had a large impact on our decision.”
“As we were making comparisons, the benefits of the Entellisys system far outweighed that of the others,” sums up Bickett.
The System Low Down
The Entellisys system can be ideal for large facilities where downtime is to be avoided like the plague. For instance, oil and gas centers, data centers, airports, and hospitals are in a position to benefit greatly from the Entellisys’s increased reliability and streamlined comprehensiveness, but, since it’s still considered a newer technology, such businesses are only just starting to realize its benefits, and that it’s an option available to them.
“Businesses want to see proven technology before they purchase it,” says Jane Barber, Entellisys product manager, GE Consumer & Industrial. “Previously we were in that phase of ‘This technology is really neat, does it work?’ and now we’re entering into the ‘Yes, it really works,’ phase.”
Appearance-wise, the Entellisys looks very similar to traditional switchgear, but not as cluttered. “It doesn’t have meters or relays that are separate; it’s streamlined,” says Barber. “It’s an integrated and intelligent system that senses current and voltages in switchgear and provides protection in case there are electrical faults.” Its advanced protection options include the first cost-effective implementation of bus differential (ANSI 87B) on low-voltage switchgear.
A Cut Above
“What’s key about the Entellisys is that it’s a shift in how we look at our electrical protection,” says Barber. “With traditional switchgear, each circuit breaker looks at its own load and reacts to current and voltages accordingly. But, Entellisys looks at all the circuit breakers as a system and makes intelligent choices. It’s more of a central architecture, from a protection, monitoring, and control standpoint.”
The Entellisys system emphasizes safety and reliability by, not only providing greater protection, but also enhanced selectivity. With traditional switchgear, a choice must often be made between protection and selectivity, resulting in either overprotection (taking electrical service out to a broader part of the power distribution system), or under protection (not taking a fault off the system fast enough, which can result in damage). The Entellisys switchgear, on the other hand, provides protection without compromising selectivity, resulting in continuity of service to the maximum part of a facility while still protecting it where it needs to be protected.
The Entellisys system also offers a variety of additional features. One of its features, for example, is “the ability for the system to easily change and adapt to what a company needs today or in the future,” says Barber.
Salem Hospital is lucky in that they’ve never actually experienced an arc flash on their grounds. But the risk is always there, and, as a result, so is the fear.
“All you need to do is see one arc flash anywhere and you don’t want to see another one,” says Gloe. “They can be pretty catastrophic.”
One of the best safety aspects of the Entellisys is that you don’t have to stand in front of the breaker to open and close it. “This is really the biggest risk; the HMI [human machine interface] for the Entellisys is away from the panel, which allows you to do any necessary manipulations remotely,” adds Gloe.
Another safety aspect is that there are devices that can be hooked to the breaker, and with a long cord you can remotely rack the breakers in and out.
What largely contributes to the Entellisys’s reliability is its built-in redundancy. In this technology, there’s no systemwide single point of failure. The result is a lot of up-time and less worry for the user.
Enhanced Flexibility
The flexibility of the Entellisys system allows for an easy modification without taking the equipment down. The system is also programmable, with increased capacity and designs that allow for the incorporation of future changes. “For instance, if a designer programs it to have only over-current protection today, and the customer wants to add voltage relaying down the line, then it can be customized via programming to incorporate that change in the future,” says Barber.
She elaborates on the ease of the Entellisys system by citing a real-world example: “There’s a data center that bought an Entellisys lineup with their first installation, and after installing it they realized they needed to change some of their protection capability,” she says. “The owner asked the contractor how long it would have taken to make these changes on traditional equipment, and his answer was four to five days. With Entellisys, it took a mere two hours. The customer has since purchased multiple systems.”
“The flexibility is very strong with this system, in that we are now able to carry fewer parts,” begins Gloe. “For example, we can carry fewer spare breakers and interchange them as necessary, then program them to have the right protection level.”
Barber believes the Entellisys is changing the way people think about switchgear. “As customers are learning about and experiencing the many benefits it offers, they’re realizing it has more value than they thought compared to the first time they may have seen it,” she says. “As a result, this is now their standard low-voltage switchgear.”
Monitoring
Across Salem Hospital, each Entellisys is installed in a different location, depending on which load it is serving, with multiple line-ups feeding different buildings. The various systems all talk to each other. And, because the Entellisys system sees everything that’s going on, it displays all the information—not just part of it—on every monitor, be it a laptop or a desktop—throughout the hospital campus.
With traditional equipment, if there’s a failure, the user has to go to the site to investigate. Not so anymore.
“If there’s a problem somewhere, we can see on the screen where it originates from instead of having to physically go over to see it,” says Bickett. “Now we can monitor all buildings on campus without having to do the legwork.”
The Entellisys system also provides information on every breaker—information that gives the user an idea of when maintenance is needed. “The information it provides includes diagnostic data,” states Barber. “It keeps a log of what is going on, and, depending on how the customer customizes the system, they will receive alarms, visually and through e-mail.”
The alarms provide immediate notification, saving time and enhancing up time. Salem Hospital is utilizing an added feature of the Entellisys to send a page to the engineering staff through their alphanumeric pager.
“We can respond pretty quickly depending on the level of alarm,” says Gloe. Along with customizing the type of alarm received, users can customize the level of reporting for each alarm. “For instance, we’ve set it to e-mail for routine calls, but if it’s more urgent, the system will page us through our alpha numeric pagers.”
Entellisys switchgear can also send pre-alarms to tell the user about an imminent failure before it happens.
Maintenance
The Entellisys system allows for easy maintenance as needed, which can vary from customer to customer depending on the amount of usage. An added benefit is that, when GE makes these changes, the site in question can continue functioning normally, since the changes can be made without shutting down any equipment.
The hospital is currently under warranty with GE and will be until 12 months after the new patient tower opens and the system goes live. After 20 months, the hospital and GE will negotiate a long-term contract for fee for service. As of now, the two parties don’t have a maintenance contract per se, but the hospital is impressed with the responsiveness GE has shown throughout this period.
“Every time we want them to come out and help us with something, they’ve come within 24 hours,” says Gloe. “And, this has all been for non-critical situations. We haven’t had a critical power outage since we started using it.”
Man to Machine
The Entellisys Near-Gear HMI is, as mentioned previously, the platform through which operators interact with the Entellisys. “The HMI is a remote touch-screen panel, and it’s 50 feet or more away from the distribution center that houses the breakers,” adds Gloe.
With the Entellisys, personal protection equipment traditionally worn by operators is reduced due to the remote-operating capabilities. The HMI can be located up to 250 feet from the line-up, which is far outside the flash protection danger zone. It consists of a stand-alone stack or a wall-mounted enclosure with a touch-screen interface (at Salem Hospital it’s a wall-mounted unit). The interface process is simplified to the point where operators can change energy let-through levels with the push of a button.
Installation and Customization
The Entellisys’ simple design makes installation a cinch, saving labor costs and time. The system contains fewer parts than typical switchgear—less than 50% of the wiring normally found. When the equipment arrives on the site, the owner simply places it where they want it to go, and then GE does the hook-ups and the commissioning.
Traditionally, with switchgear there are thousands of wires. With the Entellisys switchgear, GE eliminates that. Things are plug and play, with color-coded parts. Depending on the complexity of the line up, installation of the Entellisys generally takes about a week on average. Once installed, the system is completely customizable. At the hospital, all the screens the employees see—as far as the HMIs are concerned—are pretty much the same. But the system itself is highly customizable in other ways.
“Before GE built the graphics screens, they came out and asked us how we wanted to use the system—what parameters to use, which screens we wanted to monitor, and how the various components should interface with each other,” says Gloe. “The whole thing was custom built with us from the start.”
The hospital was pleased with SSR as well. “Both Greg [Gloe] and I have been in the industry for at least 50 years collectively, and I have to say that working with SSR has been one of the most positive experiences,” says Bickett. “The representatives there listened to our opinions regarding all aspects of the equipment and installation.”
Getting the Hang of It
GE trains all the employees to use the equipment once it’s installed. The hospital engineering staff needs to be trained in more depth, but the rest of the staff needs to learn how to look at and interpret the screens, which tell if the system is energized or not, along with other power system data. When the equipment is being installed, GE provides classes on the owner’s site.
“We take them through the system and they get some hands-on training that takes just one day,” says Barber. “The system is very user friendly and intuitive, and easier to interface with than traditional gears.”
And, good news for the employees: The installation of the Entellisys at the hospital didn’t—and won’t—cost anyone their job. In fact, it allows employees to make better use of their time by freeing it, due to its increased reliability and a faster response time.
The Entellisys switchgear is also set up to protect itself from employees who might try to get in over their heads when operating it. Operators attain secure access to the system through the use of passwords using networked desktops and laptops. The passwords are actually set up so that the user is only able to do things to the system that match their skill level.
Looking Ahead
For phase I and II, the equipment cost for the hospital will total at 1.3 million. “The hospital is being billed a percentage of what’s completed each month, on a payment application that’s very extensive and includes the entire project,” says Greg Rinard, project manager at Turner Construction. “The electrical switchgear is just one part of a large bill.”
So far, the hospital is pleased with the functionality of the Entellisys, and they are confident it will continue to perform well in the future.
“Like any new system, you have some kinks to work out,” says Bickett. “But, I think we’ve worked through the vast majority of them, and now we’re seeing the benefits.”
“The Entellisys systems have been rock solid,” adds Gloe. “The safety aspects are huge, considering the arc flash potential here at the hospital. It’s been a very positive experience for us, and we look forward to enjoying many years of reliability. I can’t stress how much I care about my staff, and doing anything I can to keep them out of harm’s way.”
Currently, GE has over 70 Entellisys systems in the US, and a number in Canada, Saudi Arabia, and South America. The expectation, however, is that it will soon catch on quickly now that it’s being used by enough customers to call it a proven technology.
“People first had to understand what it is, and now it’s beginning to accelerate,” says Barber. “For this industry that’s very slow to change, the Entellisys system is revolutionary. There’s a lot more we can do with it, but the product does so much more that what’s out there now. It’s really a matter of people becoming accustomed to it."
Author's Bio: Writer Ed Ritchie specializes in energy, transportation, and communication technologies. |
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