For decades, APG has been tasked with installing emergency generators for mission-critical applications. With Florida’s unpredictable weather and yearly hurricanes, those generators are relied upon by all sorts of industries to keep their doors open and business running smoothly. The Pipeline has featured many notable APG projects with major emergency power systems over the years, such as St. Joseph’s Hospital South, North, and Tampa campuses, Lakeland Regional Health’s Women’s Pavilion CEP, Florida Hospital – Wesley Chapel, and Health Central Hospital – Ocoee CEP. These projects were especially important to us not just because of their innovative and sophisticated designs, but because they have the potential to save lives and make a real difference after a storm. Beyond healthcare, APG also helps provide emergency power for government facilities that need to stay up and running every day of the week, all year round. We’ve been hard at work on two such projects over the past year: the Falkenburg Road Jail Expansion Phase VII A and the Pinellas County Upgrade Campus Infrastructure – Phase 1. The Falkenburg Jail emergency power system in Tampa was especially challenging because it required major reworking of the site electrical infrastructure with medium voltage cabling. APG provided a new 4-way utility switch and over 11,000 feet of 5” PVC to complete a connection of the new CEP building to the existing TECO utility. Two state-of-the-art 2,500kW 13.2kV bi-fuel generators were paralleled together with medium voltage switchgear to run seamlessly and shed loads as required to keep the most critical systems running. We furnished and installed a 15kV secondary unit substation to distribute power all over the existing campus, and coordinated multiple shutdowns with the Sheriff’s office to transfer power and minimize downtime for those in the nearby offices and buildings. Our field technicians were responsible for the intricate task of connecting the paralleling gear controls to the CEP Control Room panels so facility staff can easily monitor the system and control how it functions.
Working on an existing and expansive site presented many challenges, but the hard work of everyone involved has paid off. We’d like to extend a special thank you to the electrical engineer of record, Bob Rolley, for the top-notch quality of his design, and the entire Walbridge Construction Team for inviting us to partner with them on such an important project! While the Falkenburg Jail was being finished, APG was awarded another hard-won emergency power system at an institutional facility: the Pinellas County Jail Infrastructure Upgrade. This extraordinarily unique project is different from anything we’ve done before in that it uses a 2,000kW co-generation natural gas generator to provide power for the entire facility 24 hours per day. Rather than running only in an emergency situation, this system runs almost constantly, only shutting down when its sophisticated controls determine that it would be cheaper to transfer to standard utility power. Infrastructure is being installed to accommodate a second 2,000kW generator, and the specialty gear required to parallel and control these two units will be installed in this phase along with two smaller generators for localized standby power. It’s hoped that the city will realize major savings in utility costs over the coming years, and work is well under way. We are truly grateful to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, Moss Construction and OCI Associates for trusting APG to deliver this demanding and ambitious project! Whether your facility’s emergency power system requires just one standalone generator or many paralleled together, APG has the experience, expertise, and dedicated technicians needed to get the job done right.
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