Customer: Chiron Life Sciences Center
Location: Emeryville, California
Customer Buisness Issue: Reliable and uninterrupted power supply for pharmaceutical production facilities
Solution: Initial installation: One Cat® Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) 250 kVA
Secondary installation: One Cat 750kW generator set Cat UPS 330 kVA One ATS
Cat Dealer: Peterson Power Systems
San Leandro, California
Manufacturing drugs to fight cancer and infectious diseases is a precise business that requires a reliable, continuous power source, which means the Chiron Corporation takes its power needs very seriously. The Emeryville, California-headquartered pharmaceutical company’s production facilities are regulated by the FDA and must adhere to specific rules in sterile fill areas. Several of these restrictions involve water circulation and clean airflow. “A minor power glitch, even one as short as a fraction of a second, stops the pumps that circulate the water,” said Hellmuth Zieleniewicz, Chiron Life Sciences Center project manager. If the pumps stop, water pressure is lost and atmospheric air is sucked into the system through open user valves, contaminating the system and resulting in hours of lost production time.
This is why the company relies on a Cat® UPS continuous power system. Chiron first purchased a Cat UPS 250 kVA backed up by a Cat generator set to protect production loads. Zieleniewicz was so pleased with its performance, he installed a Cat UPS 300 kVA integrated with a Cat 750 kW generator set and a Cat automatic transfer switch to protect the second production facility.
The Cat UPS 300 kVA alone proved its worth in the first few months after installation in the fermentation/purification building by protecting critical loads during four separate power events. “With our Cat continuous power system, the power in our production facilities is well provided for,” said Zieleniewicz.
