Systems and methods for testing emergency power supply systems

For an emergency power supply system (EPSS) that supplies emergency electrical power to a protected facility in the event of a power outage of electrical power by a utility, a method for controlling the operation of the equipment of the EPSS for compliance testing and obtaining operational data from an emergency power outage event for use as a load test for purposes of compliance test reporting to a third party regulatory agency, the EPSS equipment comprising at least one generator and at least one automatic transfer switch (ATS), the EPSS equipment providing signals indicative of the status of the EPSS equipment during different types of operational events, comprising the steps of:

• providing at least one ATS interface module coupled to at least one ATS in the EPSS equipment, the ATS interface module operative to receive operational data from the ATS and to provide a control signal to cause the ATS to start up at least one generator;
• providing at least one generator interface module coupled to at least one generator in the EPSS equipment, the generator interface module operative to receive operational data from the generator and to provide a control signal to cause the generator to start up independently of a control signal from an ATS;
• providing an emergency power management system (EPMS) that is coupled for data communications with the at least one ATS interface module and the at least one generator interface module of the EPSS equipment, the EPMS including a management computer system operative for managing operational characteristics of the EPSS equipment with automatically configurable management software, the management computer system including a computer program operative to receive signals from the at least one ATS interface module and the at least one generator interface module of the EPSS equipment indicative of status of the EPSS equipment during operational events including emergency power outage events, automatic test events, and manual test events, to log the signals from the EPSS equipment as operational data, and to provide control signals to control the operation of the EPSS equipment including the testing of the EPSS equipment in automatic test events and manual test events;
• in response to a prescheduled automatic test event, providing control signals from the EPMS management computer system to the at least one ATS interface module and the at least one generator interface module of the EPSS equipment to startup the at least one generator and run a test preselected as a load test or a no-load test, the EPMS management computer system creating and storing data records representing operational data that corresponds to a time of initiation of the automatic test event, the nature of the event as an automatic test event, operating parameters of the EPSS equipment during the automatic test event, and a time of termination of the automatic test event;
• the control signals for a load test comprising signals to the at least one ATS interface module to start up at least one generator and switch to generator power, and the control signals for a no-load test comprising signals to the at least one generator interface module to start up at least one generator independently of a signal from an associated ATS;
• in response to a manual test signal from an item of EPSS equipment indicating a manual test event preselected at test initiation as a load test or a no-load test, the EPMS management computer system creating and storing data records representing operational data that corresponds to a time of initiation of the manual test event, the nature of the event as a manual test event, operating parameters of the EPSS equipment during the manual test event, and a time of termination of the manual test event;
• in response to an emergency power outage event that causes the startup of the at least one generator by the at least one ATS, receiving signals from the EPSS equipment at the EPMS management computer system indicating the emergency power outage event, the EPMS management computer system creating and storing data records representing operational data that corresponds to a time of initiation of the power outage event, the nature of the event as a power outage event, operating parameters of the EPSS equipment during the power outage event, and a time of termination of the power outage event and return of utility electrical power to the protected facility;
• in response an emergency power outage event that occurs during an automatic test event or a manual test event, the EPMS management computer system (i) providing signals to the EPSS equipment to terminate any in-process automatic test event or manual test event, whether a load test or a no-load test, and (ii) initiating a test log at the EPMS management computer system to record EPSS operational data generated during the emergency power outage event for use as load test data;
• cumulating operational data by the EPMS management computer system corresponding to the operating parameters of the EPSS equipment for power outage events, automatic test events, manual test events, and emergency power outage events occurring during automatic test events and manual test events;
• and
• based on the cumulated operational data, providing an output from the EPMS comprising operational data from an emergency power outage event occurring during an automatic test event or a manual test event for use as load test data required for compliance test reporting to a third party regulatory agency.