Adequacy of hospital power systems as strategic operational structures

An advanced guideline is necessary to support the design of power supply systems for performances of service continuity and power outage resilience, which are fundamental for strategic operational structures (SOS) as hospitals, barracks, civil protection centers etc. The supply sources and the topology of the related system are fundamental in guaranteeing the electrical resilience of the power system. There is still no standard to assess the adequacy of hospitals power systems for natural and humanmade disasters; the World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes it as a basic problem. The SOS are subject to various anti-seismic legislative and civil protection measures, which prescribe to safeguard and plan the full operability including the power supply continuity. It is necessary that the hospital complexes must obtain the categorical recognition for the provision at least of two delivery points. They need a local fortified electrical structure, designed for service continuity during fault events and managed to ensure an adequate dynamic response to any emergency and maintenance needs. The prominence of a Business Continuity Management (BCM) is underlined; it has to be qualified for a comprehensive design with both the in-op approaches for the initial installation of the system and its life cycle operation.