But as the grid grows less reliable and storms grow more severe, the gaps in that model are growing harder to ignore.
87% of hospital generators in an 80-facility LA County study were more than 30 years old — and some were older than 60.1 Aging generators require extensive maintenance to remain reliable, and facilities that defer that maintenance face significant risk when the grid fails.
40% of diesel generator outages in the Uptime Institute's 2023 analysis were caused by UPS system failures — the systems designed to bridge the gap.2
Diesel generators and traditional UPS systems are sized to carry loads for lifesaving equipment, not the entire facility. During an outage, patients can wait in the dark for hours without heat, air conditioning, or non-critical lighting.
Joint Commission standards require hospitals to plan for 96 hours of outages. Catastrophic storms routinely exceed that window.
A single generator can take up an average of 4,000 square feet, and large hospitals need 3-4 units. That takes away from space that could be used for new equipment and patient care.
Diesel generators emit carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides. As emissions regulations tighten, hospitals relying on legacy diesel face growing compliance exposure — and a shrinking window in which they can legally operate during a prolonged grid event.
The U.S. EPA limits diesel generator run time to 100 hours at full load per year.
e2Companies' R3Di® System and Virtual Utility® deliver conditioned, uninterruptible power to every load in your facility — not just critical systems — while enabling real cost control through demand response.
The R3Di® System carries UL 1778 certification for UPS systems, a critical compliance factor for healthcare facilities. It’s rated to run prime, so your facility stays online whether a storm lasts four days or four weeks.
A set of modular, scalable units, known as the R3Di® System, each provide 1 megawatt of natural gas-fired power and battery energy storage and can easily be stacked to meet your hospital’s growing needs.
The system can be connected to the grid, providing instantaneous backup power even for multi-day outages, or run independently from and integrate with any power source, including renewables.
AI-powered software, known as Grove365®, works alongside a network operations center to monitor asset utilization, weather, grid conditions and market prices to determine the best time to deploy the R3Di® System based on your goals.
With the grid becoming less reliable and aging diesel generators prone to failure, it’s time for a more proactive approach to powering hospitals. Schedule a consultation with us to see how Virtual Utility® delivers uninterruptible, full-facility power with a lower total cost of ownership than diesel.
