CONTROLS AND INSTRUMENTATION Controlling
energy efficiency in healthcare
With budgets becoming tighter and pressures to become more energy effi cient mounting, the UK’s healthcare sector is increasingly looking towards energy controls as a means of ensuring building compliance and reducing operational expenditure. Neil Baldwin of CP Electronics examines what electrical contractors can do to overcome energy waste in hospitals from air conditioning systems.
A
ccording to the Carbon Trust, the UK’s healthcare sector spends more than £400m a year on energy. Unfortunately a signifi cant portion of this is wasted, meaning that money is being lost which could otherwise be spent on patient care. At the same time, the Department of Health has set stringent energy targets to reduce the NHS’ contribution to carbon emissions by 2025, with many Trusts citing energy reduction as the fi rst step towards achieving these goals. For electrical contractors, this brings several opportunities to work with health organisations to install energy control technology. However, when working with such complex buildings as hospitals and surgeries, traditional solutions can be diffi cult to implement.
An integrated approach to energy
One of the challenges associated with controlling air conditioning units in hospitals is the fact that many buildings have multiple diff erent units installed. Controlling these disparate systems is not an easy task when you consider the requirements of individual thermal comfort zones within a hospital. While server rooms will require almost constant cooling, back-of-house rooms and, in particular, individual wards, will only require air conditioning at certain times. It is also important to consider changing staff , patient, and visitor behaviour, as the way occupants use a building plays a role in how the air conditioning unit should perform. For example, there are many meeting rooms and other areas in hospitals that are not occupied all the time, resulting in unnecessary energy use and cost. Instead, a more eff ective use of energy would be to have the air conditioning switched on only when somebody is present in these rooms, automatically switching off again as
52 December 2017
they leave or after an appropriate time-out period. Such a method would require the installation of occupancy sensors.
Installation issues
Controlling air conditioning units with occupancy sensors is possible, but generally requires a professional electrical engineer to install them. For hospitals with more than one type of system installed, this becomes even more complex. When budgets are stretched and time is limited, the purchase and installation of several occupancy sensors for multiple air conditioning units can become an expensive and time consuming exercise.
Furthermore, when electrical installations take place in public spaces such as hospitals, you often need to isolate large areas of the building as work is carried out, creating disruption. Battery-powered surface-mounted air conditioning controllers however, minimise installation time. An infrared controller, such as the GESM-AC from CP, learns the infrared code of an infrared enabled air conditioning unit and overrides the on/off commands to regulate the use based on room occupancy. This overcomes the challenge of integrating multiple disparate air conditioning unit systems as no wiring is required. It also ensures that air conditioning is only being powered when a room is occupied, rather than running all day and wasting energy.
If the UK healthcare sector is to reduce its running costs and achieve some of the carbon reductions that the Department of Health is demanding, then a greater use of energy controls should be considered.
By installing HVAC controls, contractors can manage several diff erent systems with the same, single solution.
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