Terre Haute Regional Hospital

Normal & Emergency Power Upgrade

A Level II Trauma Center, Terre Haute Regional Hospital was in need of an upgrade to both their normal and emergency power for a number of reasons. Their physical plant had reached the maximum for both space and power capacity so they hired Hafer to design an addition with necessary systems and equipment to transition over their power loads. The project also required addressing several code deficiencies and providing emergency back-up power to feed the entire chiller plant as well as redundancy to both the normal and emergency power distribution systems.

Located adjacent to the Emergency Department, the addition to the physical plant was designed to blend in with the existing facade of the hospital. The emergency power expansion included two indoor 1250 kW diesel fuel fired generators. On-site fuel storage with extended run time capacity is provided with a 15,000 gallon underground fuel storage tank. In addition, paralleling switchgear and 10 automatic / manual transfer switches were installed to backfeed the Hospital’s emergency loads and the chiller plant loads. Now, the hospital has redundant normal and emergency power distribution systems which can be relied on to provide the power required for not only the critical hospital loads, but the equipment loads required to heat and cool the buildings. The normal power upgrade included two new utility services with a main-tie-main switchboard arrangement used to feed hospital loads plus a third service to feed the fire pump load.

With the normal and emergency power upgrade complete, Terre Haute Regional Hospital operates more efficiently and is easier to maintain. The hospital is now able to plan for necessary renovations and additions to the hospital to better serve its patients.