6/5/24, 1:56 PM Hospital tower requires arc energy reduction

Home Electrical and Arc Flash and Electrical Case study: Hospital tower requires arc
/ Power / Safety / energy reduction

Case study: Hospital

tower requires arc
energy reduction
To keep occupants and workers safe in
this hospital, electrical engineers used
zone-selective interlocking (ZSI) breakers
to mitigate arc flash incidents
BY HUNTER KOCH OCTOBER 25, 2023

Courtesy: Certus Consulting Engineers

The project design for a new hospital bed tower

will include a new normal power utility service
and a new generator system with associated
normal and emergency branch panels to serve
the building. The new building will use a
480/277-volt, 3-phase, 4-watt plus ground
service from the utility. The goal of this example
is to design the arc energy reduction system for
the electrical equipment over 1,200 amps that is
required by NFPA 70 (2023): National Electrical
Code to have arc energy reduction.
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6/5/24, 1:56 PM Hospital tower requires arc energy reduction

It is determined a 2,000-amp normal power

utility is needed and a 1,600-amp main
switchboard is required to feed the emergency
power system. From these main switchboards,
the rest of the electrical system and
downstream equipment is designed and sized to
feed the building. The design determines that
these two switchboards are the only two pieces
of equipment over the 1,200-amp threshold.

The next step for this design is to perform an arc

flash analysis to determine the incident energy,
arc flash boundary and the necessary personal
protective equipment (PPE) for the two pieces of
main electrical equipment that require arc
energy reduction.

For this example, SKM System Analysis Inc.

software is used to perform the arc flash
analysis calculations. Important inputs for this
calculation are to obtain the available fault
current from the utility company, the calculated
fault based on the generator contribution,
voltage and amperage ratings for all the major
electrical gear, motor contributions and
transformer impedances (see Table 3).

Table 3: Calculation results of the main

switchboard and emergency switchboard arc
flash analysis and associated arc flash hazard
labels for the equipment. Courtesy: Certus
Consulting Engineers

According to the results from the SKM

calculation, both panels are above the 40
cal/cm2 threshold and they both have extreme
arc flash boundaries exceeding 200 inches. This

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means that a person working in those electrical

rooms is almost guaranteed to be working
inside the arc flash boundaries.

Because both switchboards exceed the 40

cal/cm2 incident energy threshold, there is no
safe PPE for working on either of these. With no
safe PPE and a room encompassing arc flash
boundary, neither of these switchboards should
be maintained live under any circumstance.
Doing so would result in certain permanent
injury and/or death were an arc flash to occur
while working in the room.

The example arc flash hazard labels from Table

3 need to be placed on each switchboard to
ensure the level of danger is known to anybody
entering the room and to ensure no work or
maintenance is done to the equipment while
operational.

Because these two switchboards fall above

1,200 amps, NFPA 70 Article 240.87 requires
them to have arc energy reduction. Article
240.87 describes six different methods for
achieving arc energy reduction; this is a new
expansion so there are no existing methods for
the building already established.

The method chosen for this design will be zone-

selective interlocking (ZSI) breakers. This
method has been chosen as it is a common,
well-understood solution that works
automatically. Automatically tripping in a fault
condition is preferrable and it does not require a
person to activate and deactivate the arc flash
mitigation measures, which increases the safety
in the system.

An additional benefit of this method is that it will

aid in selective coordination by only opening the
nearest breakers the fault, reducing the amount
of the building that will experience downtime to
a breaker trip.

This method is not without drawbacks. There is

added cost to the circuit breakers installed in the
two switchboards because the ZSI breakers are

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significantly more expensive than normal

electronic trip circuit breakers typically used in
switchboards for this type of facility. This
method also adds signal circuits between
upstream circuit breaker and the downstream
breakers in the equipment enclosure increasing
the labor and materials cost.

To accomplish the desired arc energy reduction

using ZSI breakers, the ZSI breaker types must
be used for the electrical equipment’s main
circuit breaker, as well as all other breakers in
the board feeding downstream equipment and
loads. For this design, all circuit breakers in the
two switchboards will be 100% rated, electronic
trip circuit breakers with adjustable; long-time,
short-time, instantaneous, ground settings; ZSI
modules; and a signal circuit to communicate
between the main circuit breaker and each
downstream breaker in the switchboard.

The final design for ZSI is shown in Figure 3. It

shows how this method can be used on contract
documents and the symbology/terminology for
ZSI breakers on one-line diagrams.

Figure 3: Final one-line diagram including zone-

selective interlocking circuit breakers as the arc
energy reduction method. Courtesy: Certus
Consulting Engineers

Following the code requirements set by NFPA 70

and NFPA 70E (2021): Standard for Electrical
Safety in the Workplace — and using the proper
considerations when evaluating electrical
systems for arc flash safety — will ensure a
safer, more maintainable building for anybody
working in these spaces in the future.

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Hunter Koch
Author Bio: Hunter Koch, EIT,
is an electrical designer at
Certus Consulting Engineers
where he leads design efforts on
health care and complicated
electrical infrastructure projects.

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