• Describe ways in which a facility owner may mitigate the requirement for temporary emergency backup power.
• Outline best practices for tests and exercises of already installed generators.
• List questions a facility owner should ask and answer to help mitigate the need for Temporary Emergency Power.
• Define the term “microgrid” as it applies in several contexts.

Audio Transcript

• Depending upon the type of facility you may own or operate, there may possibly be a statutory or perhaps an applicable “industry standard” that requires you to have a backup generator installed.
• If your facility supports governmental or community post-event first responder activities, there may be a statutory requirement for your facility to have backup power.
• In some other locations, facilities such as fueling stations along an evacuation route may be statutorily required to have backup electrical power available. Depending upon those statutory requirements or “industry standards” the generator might provide power to all, or to only a certain component, of the total electrical requirement of the facility.
• Some of those requirements may also dictate the installation of an automatic transfer switch to change the electrical feed into the facility from the commercial electrical distribution system, a.k.a “the grid”, to an electrical feed provided by the backup generator.
• Automatic Transfer Switches are not very common and are typically found in facilities where critical facility systems must remain in a non-interruptible operational condition such as in certain segments of hospitals, data processing centers, etc.

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• If your facility requires a generator, and one is in fact already installed, there are additional operations and maintenance activities that should be performed.
• Periodically scheduled full load operational tests should be part of your normal operations and maintenance routine for the generator and your facility.
• Many generator owners run only the generator engine on a frequent basis and the generator is rarely, if ever, operated under a full electrical load condition. As a result, the full suite of components found on the generator are not all “exercised” regularly.
• In many of those cases, many times after “the grid” has been impacted by an event, those generators typically operate for up to 48-72 hours before a component fails and they are no longer operational.

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• Conducting full load operational exercises with the generator also assists with the development and exercising of facility electrical cold start procedures.
• Electrical equipment is prone to electrical power surge induced failure. Lightning strike at a facility can cause this, but surges caused by when the electrical power fails and comes back on unevenly or irregularly will also cause electrical equipment casualties.
• When a generator starts up, it takes a period of time until the electrical power it is producing “settles down” and is consistent. If electrical equipment is not temporarily isolated from the reenergizing of the facilities electrical system, it could damage some of that equipment.

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• If the full electrical load requirements of the facility is “felt” by the generator as it starts up, this could overload the generator and cause it to fail.
• A process to reenergize the facility one electrical load segment at a time is strongly recommended.
• This can be as simple as turning off all the electrical breakers in the electrical panel(s) when the power fails, and then reenergizing them one at a time once the generator has begun to operate.
• It could also be as extreme as unplugging every piece of electrical equipment and plugging them in and restarting them one after another.
• For electrically sensitive equipment such as computers, monitors, radios, etc., the second approach is considered a best practice.
• Cold start exercises can help ensure electrical system restart “muscle memory” is gained by facility employees and users.
• If your facility has a large number of “industrial type” electric motors, many of these have what is called a “cold start” electrical draw that is significantly higher than the electrical draw they require once they are operating. Being able to sequence the restart of these motors is essential to ensure the generator is not overloaded.

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• How long has the generator that provides the backup power to your facility been in place?
• Has your facility undergone any upgrades that may impact the total electrical load the facility has now compared with the electrical load in place when the generator was installed?
• Your facility’s electrical requirements may have remained the same, or they may have increased or decreased. Decreased requirements are seen especially if facility upgrades have replaced older “harder start” industrial electrical motors with “softer start” electrical motors that do not have as large an initial electrical draw requirement on startup.
• Conducting a facility electrical review every three years is a good way to ensure your facility’s backup power requirements can be met.

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• If there is no statutory or other standard(s) that requires your facility to have a permanently installed backup power generator, there are still questions to be asked and answered.
• What services does your facility provide?
• How long can your business, your community, or your agency “survive” if those services are not available to you or the citizens?
• If the estimated date for commercial power grid restoration is estimated to be several weeks away, what then?
• This is the common situation most facility owners face after some disaster event has impacted the availability of electric power at their facility, be it some governmental agency owned “public” facility, or a privately owned facility or business.

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• Obtain an assessment of your facility to know what size and type of generator you might need following an outage to the electrical grid.
• As part of that assessment, know what other materials will be required to physically connect that generator to your facility’s internal electrical system.
• Investigate local vendors or elements in your government to determine what they may have available.
• Remember, however, that generators will be in high demand once the electrical power grid suffers an outage.

Audio Transcript

• A manual transfer switch can simplify the installation process immensely.
• It allows the generator to be placed fairly close to the facility, minimizing the amount of electrical cabling required to connect the facility to the generator.
• If a manual transfer switch is not present, typically the electrical cables have to be run for a greater length to connect the generator to a facility’s interior electrical panel.

Audio Transcript

• When the transfer switch is switched to feed the facility’s electrical system from the generator, it will also disconnect the facility from the commercial power grid feed.
• This ensures no electricity from the generator back feeds to the power grid endangering the lives of the line worker working to restore the damaged electrical distribution system.
• This also protects the facility from any power surges from the commercial power grid as it is returned to operational status and re-energized.

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• If a manual transfer switch is not in place, the fusible links must be physically disconnected to isolate the facility from the commercial power grid so electricity will not backfeed to the electrical grid from the generator.
• The personnel installing the generator may not have the correct tools or equipment to remove these fuses.
• This could require utility company support to accomplish. They may not be readily able to support your need in a timely fashion as they are working to reestablish the overall electrical distribution system as rapidly as they can.
• There are costs associated with installing a manual transfer switch, but the costs are significantly less expensive as compared to the costs of installing a generator. Keep in mind, manual transfer switches do not have the same operations and maintenance requirements as a generator.

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• The term microgrid can have a very different meaning depending upon how it is being used with respect to an electrical “system.”
• The Department of Energy’s (DOE) basic definition of a microgrid is “A group of interconnected loads and distributed energy resources with clearly defined electrical boundaries that acts as a single controllable entity with respect to the grid [and can] connect and disconnect from the grid to enable it to operate in both grid connected or island mode.”

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• Is your definition of the electrical “system” the facility itself? If so, then the microgrid could be that segment of the facility’s electrical system that receives electrical power from a generator. In some facilities, such as a hospital, that may be a smaller segment of the facility’s overall electrical system.
• In many cases, the definition of the electrical “system” is a segment of the utility company’s distribution network. In that instance, the term microgrid refers to a segment of that distribution system that can be isolated from their overall distribution system and operated independently.

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• In terms of providing Temporary Emergency Power, the term microgrid refers to an electrical system allowing multiple facilities to be powered from a single larger generator versus installing multiple individual smaller generators at the facilities.
• However, this is an option that requires advance planning and design. That system would have to be able to be isolated from the rest of the utility grid. A transformer would very likely be required to step the voltage output from the large generator up to match the voltage of the normal utility system. These types of transformers are not typically a readily available “off the shelf” item.

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• The Environmental Protection agency has recently posted information to their website related to increasing resiliency at the water and wastewater sector of facilities.
• See other information at their website: The document is entitled "POWER RESILIENCE Guide for Water and Wastewater Utilities." (https://www.epa.gov/waterresilience)

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• The Power for Patients Coalition is working to increase electrical power resiliency and restoration across facilities in their community of practice, both private and public.
• See their information at http://www.poweredforpatients.org.

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• Described ways in which a facility owner may mitigate the requirement for temporary emergency backup power.
• Outlined best practices for tests and exercises of already installed generators.
• Listed questions a facility owner should ask and answer to help mitigate the need for Temporary Emergency Power.
• Defined the term “microgrid” as it applies in several contexts.

Audio Transcript