Uninterruptible power for the pharmaceutical industry

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The pharmaceutical industry relies on uninterrupted power to keep medicines safe and sterile.

German pharmaceutical service provider Vetter specialises in the aseptic filling and packaging of drugs in injection systems using strict, sterile processes in line with both regulatory authorities and its customers’ requirements. It’s their job to prevent any microorganisms or impurities get into the active ingredients, as this would compromise their effectiveness and therefore patient safety.

Ventilation systems support a constant positive pressure in the cleanrooms where medicines are manufactured. If the power, and therefore the ventilation system, fails for just a few seconds, sterility in the room can no longer be maintained and entire batches of medication would have to be disposed of. Our mtu Kinetic PowerPacks prevent this from happening.

How kinetic mass storage provides constant reliability

Vetter has been safeguarding its production processes with uninterruptible power supply systems - Kinetic PowerPacks - for almost 20 years.

What makes them special is that they are immediately ready for use even without a battery and can compensate for the smallest irregularities in the power grid. Our mtu Kinetic PowerPacks have a constantly rotating kinetic mass storage unit. This is coupled with an mtu combustion engine and a synchronous generator which, depending on the operating mode, is also motor-driven and thus compensates for the power factor of different consumers.

While the public grid is producing power, the kinetic mass storage device - in this case a flywheel - is driven by the generator, which works as an electric motor in this operating state. The heavy kinetic mass storage serves as an "energy battery" that stores the energy and then makes it available when the power fails.

In the event that the public power grid fails, part of the energy stored in the flywheel then drives the generator, which then takes over the power supply. Meanwhile, another part of the stored rotational energy helps to start the 12-cylinder mtu Series 4000 diesel engine very quickly. It reaches its rated power within a very short time and can then take over the power supply via the generator and stabilise the flywheel. This happens without interruption.

Providing value for decades to come

The mtu systems at the various Vetter sites are used around 50 times a year. As well as full power outages, our mtu Kinetic PowerPacks also compensate for fluctuations and irregularities in the power grid. And these are occurring more and more frequently partly due to more renewable energy being fed into the grid, making it more volatile.

When these fluctuations occur, there is a specific trigger logic that has been refined over decades, as Christoph Webinger, Stationary & Sustainable Sales Lead, Germany explains. “If there are only minor fluctuations or phase failures in the power grid, the KPP system remains connected to the grid and merely compensates for the output voltage."

Nine mtu Kinetic PowerPacks are already in operation at the Vetter’s Ravensburg site in Germany, and two more will be added soon delivering a combined output of 16,000 kilowatts. They are regularly serviced to verify that they are always reliably ready for use and able to support operations for the next 20 years.

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