Research project to gather electrical demand data

As health care facilities face difficult challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, they also face a unique opportunity to capture data that will benefit them in both the short and long term.

The American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE) is sponsoring a new research project being administered by three partners: Fire Protection Research Foundation (the National Fire Protection Association's research affiliate) Mazzetti and Nova Power. The project aims to collect data from 12 hospitals that will:

• Provide sufficient receptacle demand and load data for various occupancies
• Provide a technical basis for considering revisions to the service, feeder and branch circuit design requirements in the National Electrical Code®. 
• Discover ways to allow hospitals to easily view their own data while contributing to important research that will affect them in future years. 

Project partners:

The partners say that during this time it is helpful for hospitals to be able to see their detailed electrical data. The pandemic offers an opportunity to gather data on electrical demand and usage that will be critical in helping design and operate hospitals more safely efficiently in the future.  

What if I have a connected meter but can’t get data from it?

Many hospitals have connected meters but are not currently able to get the data out. For example most newer automatic transfer switches have such meters. Some hospitals have such metering that stopped reporting after an operating system upgrade, etc. 

Through a generous sponsorship, a vendor is willing to provide a free service for 90 days to get data from such meters and provide it to ASHE.

This opportunity will allow organizations to see their own data and provide the data to the wider research community. Participating hospitals would work directly with the vendor and sign a data sharing agreement giving access to ASHE and the research foundation.

Not every meter will be eligible for this service. Here’s what participants will need for this system to work:

• Model numbers of the meters in the equipment
• How they are connected (network card, modbus serial 4-wire connected to gateway, etc.)
• ID (for example IP address and/or slave ID)
• Available  IT staff to work with the vendor 

The project seeks 12 hospitals to sign up for the research project. Those who are interested or have questions can reach out to Victoria Hutchison at the Fire Protection Research Foundation at vhutchison@nfpa.org.