Isolated Power Panels

An isolated power system exists to solve one problem: in a wet procedure location, a first earth fault must not interrupt the procedure or expose anyone to a shock hazard. The supply is deliberately ungrounded through an isolation transformer, and a line isolation monitor watches the leakage continuously and alarms before the situation becomes unsafe.

NFPA 99 defines where this applies. Category 1 spaces, which includes operating theatres and certain intensive care and interventional areas, are where the standard drives isolated power in wet locations. The consultant's drawings identify those rooms, and the panel schedule follows from them rather than from a general assumption about the department.

The components work as a set. The isolation transformer rating has to suit the connected load with margin, the line isolation monitor's alarm threshold is set to the total hazard current the system can develop, reference and remote alarm indicators go where clinical staff will actually see them, and equipotential bonding ties the exposed metal in the room to a common reference. Substituting a general purpose distribution board here is not a cost saving, it is a departure from the standard the facility will be inspected against.

NLS Power supplies the full set: NFPA 99 isolation panels, line isolation monitors, medical isolation transformers, operating theatre control panels, equipotential bonding systems, medical grade socket outlets and theatre control panels. NLS already supplies hospital infrastructure projects in Saudi Arabia, and these items can sit on the same enquiry as the UPS, generators and fire systems the same project needs.