Few industry sectors have energy demands quite like healthcare. By definition, many buildings involved in treating the sick and injured need to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Here the Electrical Contractors’ Association’s (ECA’s) head of Energy Solutions, Bill Wright, describes some of the building improvements and technologies that he says are a ‘sure fire way to cut energy costs’, both in new-build projects, and during refurbishment of hospitals and other healthcare facilities.
Hospitals and other healthcare facilities clearly have a myriad of energy demands, ranging from the very basic need to keep the lights on, to powering advanced diagnostic machinery. Meanwhile, the NHS itself has one of the largest property estates in Europe, magnifying the scale of energy demand. Indeed (according to figures from the NHS Sustainable Development Unit), the NHS estimates that it spent nearly £600 million on energy bills in 2011-12. Aside from a clear ethical need to ensure that as much of the budget as possible is spent on patient care, the NHS also has a self-imposed challenge to reduce its carbon footprint by 10 per cent by 2015. With serious energy price hikes expected – an increase of up to 50 per cent in the next two years1 – both public and private healthcare providers need high quality, practical advice on how to cut their energy demand.
Energy efficiency at the design stage
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