Health Care Product Manufacturer
When producing highly regulated, sensitive health care products, keeping production lines running is critical. This health care brand needed reliable backup power for its manufacturing and distribution operation, and Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions delivered solutions customized to its many sites.
The below projects were performed by Duke Energy’s Business Energy Services team. Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions leverages these specialists to deliver innovative solutions to customers.
The Challenge
At the health care brand’s manufacturing sites, a brief outage could require lengthy resetting and re-sterilization of equipment in its clean room operations. And continuous uptime in temperature-controlled distribution sites is critical to preserving product quality. With no cushion for making up lost production, downtime at its facilities could affect the company’s output and position in the market.
On-site backup power helps to ensure the reliability of operations, but the organization realized upfront costs for self-owned and operated generators are expensive – and replacing and maintaining those systems could be risky. So, the company needed to work with a highly experienced energy advisor it could trust.
The Solution
What started as one reliable backup power project between Duke Energy and the health care product company has since grown into a long-term relationship that now includes six customized resiliency solutions for manufacturing and distribution sites in South Carolina, Florida and Virginia.
Duke Energy’s engineering team proposed a custom mix of generators and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems – all tailored to each facility’s unique needs. These backup power solutions are helping to better ensure that the facilities will stay up and running any time the primary electrical service is interrupted.
With Duke Energy designing, owning, maintaining and operating the equipment, the manufacturer is able to prevent business continuity issues while saving money on upfront capital expenditures. In doing so, the company avoids the potential downsides of ownership while taking advantage of Duke Energy’s extensive knowledge and experience.
The Results
- Long-term collaborative relationship with a highly experienced energy advisor
- More reliable, resilient backup power in the event of an unplanned outage
- Elimination of risks associated with owning and maintaining the backup solution
- Price predictability and no upfront capital
More reliability. Price predictability. Less risk.
With Duke Energy investing its capital into all of the projects and providing maintenance through the life of the contracts, the organization shifted its energy projects from capital expenditures to operational expenses.
That means for a fixed-monthly fee at each location, six of the brand’s manufacturing and distribution facilities are better able to keep their operations up and running while refocusing resources on their core business – all while relieving the company from the burden of upfront capital and risks of ownership.
The Details
South Carolina: A 4,000-kW full-site standby generator replaced an existing smaller 350-kW generator, providing the manufacturing facility with added backup power and savings on expansion space and maintenance costs.
South Carolina: A 1,000-kW generator was installed at the 500,000-square-foot distribution center, providing the entire site with reliable backup power in the event of unplanned downtime and expansion capability.
Florida: A total of 3,750 kW of backup generation and two 500-kVA uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems will help this manufacturing site bridge the power gap and better insulate the facility’s equipment from outages.
Florida: Two 2,000-kW generators and a 1,000-kVA UPS system at this manufacturing site help to provide immediate backup power in the event of unplanned downtime.
Florida: A 2,500-kW generator provides backup power to the entire distribution center and laboratory for testing and preparing manufacturing equipment.
Virginia: A 3,000-kW and 500-kW generator system provide backup power to the entire distribution site, resulting in a savings on maintenance cost and more reliable backup power. Electrical infrastructure including switchgear, transformers and cabling was also installed in the new building.
Who We Are
Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions has been improving the quality, resiliency and efficiency of energy strategy for large commercial and industrial customers for over 25 years. Our expertise, contracting flexibility and variable risk sharing allow our clients to improve their mechanical and electrical infrastructure while delivering better business outcomes.
