Decarbonising the NHS with smart, flexible, resilient tech

The Energy Trilemma – an affordable, sustainable, and secure power supply – is a pressing global issue, and in the UK, this is nowhere more urgent than in the NHS. Budget constraints are at their tightest, energy prices are at their highest, and the sector has some of the most stringent targets for reaching Net Zero. Andrew Donald, senior Business Development manager at Powerstar, looks at the funding that can help Trusts transition to clean energy, and the technology available to reduce costs, lower emissions, and ensure the secure power supply so vital to public health

The British Medical Journal1 recently noted that NHS Trusts are being forced to find as much as an additional £2 m a month over the winter to cope with energy price rises – for some Trusts, equating to more than a 200% increase in gas and electricity budgeting for 2022-2023. This makes the government commitment to continue funding to help decarbonise the estate more welcome than ever – largely through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) and, since September last year, its latest phase – Phase 3b, focusing on heating system upgrades, to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and support the move to cleaner, and cheaper, renewable energy sources.

While this latest round of PSDS funding highlights heating as a crucial aspect of decarbonisation, with heating replacement an essential component for any application, the overarching emphasis is true to the ethos of the Scheme, and energy efficiency is still at its core. Successful applications from previous rounds of PSDS demonstrate the synergy between heating