An indoor generator is a power generator that keeps your equipment running when the power goes out, but has the added benefit of being able to be deployed indoors, thus safe for indoor use. This is opposed to using a generator which must be kept outside and exposed to the elements—which in the case of an extreme weather event may be the reason why a power outage occurred in the first place.
Planning to use a backup generator for emergency power outage situations is neither a new nor unique idea—however, for most, when the subject of backup power generators comes up, their minds often spring to gas-powered and diesel-powered generator options.
And while we believe gasoline-powered generators do provide value by producing astonishing amounts of power, they are not always the best option to deploy especially in medical and medical adjacent facilities.
First and foremost, because of the exhaust they produce they cannot be used indoors. Second, the extreme noise levels, acquisition and storage of fuel, and regular repair costs can make them difficult to live with—creating extra work for facilities managers and sap valuable time from office administrators when making the various payments. Additionally, due to the aforementioned noise levels and exhaust fumes depending on your facilities location and local regulations gas power may require additional permitting or be outright banned.
By contrast, battery powered indoor generators provide you with the ample amounts of power needed to ensure a medical practice or laboratory environment is properly secure without the additional barriers that can occur when installing gasoline-powered generators.
Indoor power generators are the best option for facilities that commonly require a constant power supply for freezers and refrigerators. Medical refrigerators and freezers have specifications that vary significantly from regular domestic refrigerators, as their designs are aimed specifically at ensuring that a wide ranges of vaccines, drugs, pharmaceuticals, and biomedical specimens for ongoing research and development of future cures of diseases are safe from temperature excursions that can damage them—which can render time and research useless or, even worse, harm patients who have been exposed to spoiled pharmaceuticals.
Medi-Products exclusively builds battery backup power systems, ensuring that everyone in your facility can feel at ease knowing your medical freezers and refrigerators will never have to experience irregular power supply and put your biomedical inventory at risk or change of state.
Differences Between an Indoor Generator and a Gasoline Generator - Risks
As mentioned above, you can use an indoor generator inside a medical facility, but you cannot safely use a gasoline generator in the same manner. Due to the chemical composition of exhaust fumes created during combustion—using a gasoline generator indoors is generally illegal due to how extremely dangerous it is and the risks involved, such as:
- Carbon Monoxide (CO) poisoning: carbon monoxide poisoning is a significant risk that comes with using gasoline generators indoors. Existing as a main component of exhaust fumes, prolonged exposure can lead to serious injury and can quickly lead to death. This is especially dangerous due to CO being both colorless and odorless, thus unable to be detected unless you have carbon monoxide alarms throughout your facility.
- Increased Risk of Fire Hazard – Due to the need to both source and store fuel in order to power a gasoline generator, unless carefully stored and kept far away from any potential causes of ignition this very same gasoline could be the source of a fire. Additionally, in the case of a fire in your facility originating from somewhere else, having large amounts of gasoline on site could still present a potential danger in increasing the severity of the fire and making it more difficult to combat.
- Noise pollution: most gasoline generators make some degree of noise, making them unsuitable for use, especially in medical facilities which are commonly located in much more urban areas where they are more difficult to deploy—often requiring permitting and being subject to stringent regulation regarding where in your facility you can place them, if you can have one at all. According to a survey done by Avanza, a healthcare consulting firm, 93% of ambulatory surgery centers in the United States are located in urban areas.
Benefits of indoor power generators
First of all, Medi-Products entire line of Indoor powered generators are manufactured 100% in the USA—right in our facility in Brewster, NY. Thus, you are assured that your generator is made from high-quality parts and assembled, by hand by highly trained experts who know your system better than the back of their hand. However there are some additional benefits you may enjoy when using yours such as:
- When deploying a battery backup generator one of the main benefits is that they operate with zero noise—so you don't have to worry about a loud or otherwise distracting generator disturbing the calm and collected ambience in your facility that the patients desire and your staff certainly need.
- Since your backup electricity is battery-powered, you will not need to worry about or live with toxic fumes or irritating smells that gasoline causes. Nor will you need to prepare your facility to be able to handle poisonous fumes like Carbon Monoxide. Additionally, no longer will you need a system in place to deal with the sourcing, purchasing, handling and storage of gasoline, especially during an outage situation where due to weather there could be either shortages or additional risks involved with sourcing gasoline or fueling your generator.
- High-Quality Sine Wave Power Inverters. With a pure sine wave inverter, you enjoy superior frequency and voltage stability, which in turn allows your medical freezers and refrigerators to run more efficiently because their compressors will not be worn down or otherwise damaged by irregular currents forcing them to operate outside of their normal specifications. The additional benefits of pure sine wave inverters is that any sensitive electronics you may also plug in will also not be damaged by the power produced.
- Ease of installation and automatic switching of your power source. Battery-powered backup systems are easy to install and are contain powerful transfer switches that can instantly recognize when a power outage has occurred and automatically switch to the emergency power source. They can utilize energy from any of the following sources:
- Solar sources: when there is sufficient solar power, battery-powered generators will automatically switch and start running off solar energy. This way, you can save the generator’s battery life.
- City power: if the generator recognizes city power as the most efficient, it will switch to the standard power grid.
- Battery power: in instances of a power outage and the absence of solar energy, your generator will switch automatically to its reserve of battery power. You do not have to concern yourself with making any of these switches, and depending on your power consumption, the power can last anywhere from several hours to days.
- If necessary, your indoor battery-powered generator can run on a gasoline generator: you can program your unit to also run on gasoline-powered generators as a precaution if none of the standard power sources is available and the unit's battery is down. You can recharge your unit’s battery with the gasoline-powered generator (the unit is typically outfitted with a rapid charging system).
- They plug directly into a standard wall outlet, making them easy to use and easy to install. Our backup generators also contain up to 8 separate outlets/charging ports on them allowing you to power that many appliances all at once.
When will an indoor generator be necessary?
Medical facilities typically have to meet the stringent requirements of the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), and other accrediting bodies when setting up their freezers and refrigerators. They usually monitor the appliances with NIST traceable thermometers that track and record their temperatures.
However, no matter how upgraded and cutting edge these appliances or their tracking devices may be, they still need a constant power supply as none of them will work if a power outage occurs.
Thus, an indoor power generator that provides an uninterruptible power supply for medical refrigerators and freezers is non-negotiable if you run or work in any of the following types of facilities:
- Ophthalmology & retina centers
- Oncology & cancer treatment centers
- Medical practices with vaccine storage
- Medical labs
- Blood bank storage facilities
- Pharmaceutical research
- Medical clinics with pharmacies
With an efficient indoor power generator, you can improve your drug and research efficiency, provide peace of mind for your patients, reduce the risk of loss, and, most importantly, protect your bottom line.
Medi-Products Back-Up Power Systems are all you need
At Medi-Products, we designed our products with you, the final consumer, in mind. As a result, our units are easy to install and need little to no maintenance at all. The only maintenance you will be required to make is changing the batteries once every four years.
When you purchase a Medi-Products unit, the unit comes pre-charged and ready to be installed. All you need to do is plug the system into the wall and plug the appliance into the system, and you are ready to go.
What’s more, our backup systems are designed to be compact and fit easily into any sized room, so you do not have to worry about customizing a space to meet the required standard for having an indoor generator. If you need further clarifications about getting an indoor power generator for your facility, please reach out to us. We will be happy to answer all of your questions.
