Emergency Power for Rijnstate Hospital
In early 2019, Voet Energy Solutions received a request from Croonwolter&dros to deliver a temporary 4 MVA emergency power installation for Rijnstate Hospital in the Arnhem region.
The temporary installation from Voet was required during the replacement of Rijnstate’s permanent emergency power system—a project executed in cooperation with Croonwolter&dros and Zwart Techniek.
Creating a Safe and Reliable Power Supply
Rijnstate serves a region of approximately 450,000 residents, making continuity and reliability of power supply absolutely critical. Croonwolter&dros and Rijnstate provided a set of technical requirements with several key conditions to ensure a safe and dependable power supply:
The emergency power installation must deliver at least 3 MVA;
Hospital systems must be powered up in order of critical importance;
The most essential systems must be powered within 15 seconds;
The hospital must experience minimal disturbance from the temporary power setup;
Preferential switching must be implemented;
The emergency power installation must be fully automated and built with redundancy.
Response from Voet: No problem—we’ll make it happen! When would you like us to start?
Test Setup
In preparation for this project, we built a complete test setup at our storage and logistics center in Culemborg. This allowed us to test the emergency power installation with high precision, ensuring the most reliable power solution possible. Thanks to Voet’s own power substation, we were able to fully test grid, backup, and grid-parallel operation modes. After thorough testing, we invited Croonwolter&dros and Rijnstate for a FAT (Factory Acceptance Test), during which all possible scenarios were discussed and tested.
Installation of the Temporary Emergency Power System
On October 11, the full installation was placed at Rijnstate Arnhem. The system had to be connected to the hospital’s medium-voltage infrastructure, and it was critical that this integration caused no disruptions. The hospital’s own emergency power system remained on standby until Voet’s setup was fully operational.
It was no easy task to integrate a system nearly 30 years old with equipment from 2019. This could only be done safely and effectively through careful collaboration and oversight from both Croonwolter&dros and Rijnstate.
Blackout Test at the Hospital
Once the temporary power system was fully integrated and all systems were on standby, we proceeded with the "Rijnstate Blackout Test." To verify the installation’s real-world performance, grid operator Liander scheduled a full power-down of Rijnstate’s substation one Thursday evening.
As expected, Voet’s emergency power system started up smoothly, and preferential switching was applied correctly.
Rijnstate operated entirely on the temporary power system for about 30 minutes. Afterward, we synchronized the full 10kV system back onto the grid. Once all procedures were successfully completed, Voet’s emergency system was set to automatic mode.
De-energizing the Medium-Voltage System
After Zwart Techniek completed the new permanent emergency system, Voet provided decentralized backup with 4x1 MVA units to temporarily take over parts of Rijnstate. This allowed the medium-voltage system to be safely de-energized without disrupting hospital operations.
Special thanks to all involved: the technical team at Rijnstate Arnhem, Croonwolter&dros, Zwart Techniek, Liander, and the team from Voet. Without the collaboration of such a strong team, this project could not have been completed successfully.
Voet delivered the following for this project:
Joint development of the project plan
On-site FAT test in Culemborg
Transport, setup and dismantling, 24/7 service and on-site supervision
Various emergency generators with a combined capacity of 8 MVA
Multiple mobile transformer units (provisional, step-up, step-down) with a total capacity of 5.6 MVA
9.5 km of Powerlock cable
300 meters of medium-voltage cable and accessories
