Over the past year the estates and facilities team at London’s UCLH NHS Foundation Trust and Interserve Consulting have jointly analysed energy consumption at University College Hospital to identify saving opportunities and potential carbon footprint reduction measures.
The project, under which measures proposed could see electrical energy demand cut by 25%, is just part of a wider drive to reduce carbon emissions and cut energy bills at one of London’s largest hospitals. Jonathan Baillie reports.
According to Peter Smith, director of carbon management at Interserve, who has led the team supporting much of the recent carbon footprint reduction work at University College Hospital, “there are an increasing number of reports about high profile buildings which have been designed and built to deliver a good environmental performance, but which actually deliver a rather mediocre performance once they are fully operational”. There are also, he says, “an even larger number of new buildings, including University College Hospital, which meet the energy criteria set out in the design brief, but which may still be operating well below optimum efficiency”. This trend is now being highlighted with the introduction of Display Energy Certificates for larger public buildings, which are showing relatively poor operational energy performance for (some) buildings that have only just opened. Interserve’s dedicated consulting team, with its particular experience in carbon management is, he explained, working with building occupants and on-site facilities maintenance teams “to develop an understanding about the factors causing poor operational energy performance, identify who can influence this performance, and develop an effective programme to save energy”. But why does the operational performance of new buildings sometimes either not live up to the design assumptions or, where these are met, still not achieve the efficiencies potentially possible? Peter Smith says: “One reason which seems initially counter-intuitive is the increased sophistication of building energy management systems (BEMS) leading to a reduction in energy efficiency. However when the reasons behind this lack of efficiency are understood by all parties it is possible to re-set the BEMS to deliver both a comfortable working environment and an energy-efficient building.”
A multi-faceted estate
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