Electricity in case of emergency: Automating the backup power grid at one of the Netherlands’ biggest hospitals
02Mar
The likelihood of power failures in Europe is growing dramatically, due to stretched energy supply networks, growing customer demand, and a greater reliance on variable sources of energy.
Power shortages are inconvenient for any business, but for critical establishments like hospitals, they can cost lives. That’s why Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, turned to Ovarro, the control technology specialist, to provide an automated backup energy management and SCADA system that would help protect it from power outages.
Europe is currently facing a growing energy crisis, thanks to a perfect storm of factors, including colder winters, importing natural gas, the coronavirus pandemic, and lower-than-usual output from renewable energy sources. All this brings home the fact that the transition to renewable energy generation, while essential to reducing CO2 emissions, results in an increasingly fragile energy supply. An uncertain power supply can, in turn, lead to costly power outages.
Read the full article in PBSI's March issue
