ENERGY AND CARBON REDUCTION Distributed energy partnership with Manchester Trust
Wythenshawe Hospital and Withington Community Hospital, part of the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT), are benefiting from a £10.9 million investment in new energy infrastructure. Delivered by Centrica Business Solutions, the 14-month long project, which completed this March, saw ‘life-expired infrastructure’ replaced to reduce annual carbon emissions by 25 per cent.
Centrica Business Solutions said: “The installation of state-of-the-art distributed energy technology at the two hospitals will deliver a combined annual saving of at least half of the energy bill at Wythenshawe and Withington, which will fund the infrastructure investment.
At Wythenshawe Hospital, the work includes the creation of a new energy centre, and the installation of a combined heat and power (CHP) unit, delivering almost all the power needed to run the hospital, as well as four new high-efficiency boilers. The site is also benefiting from an upgraded energy distribution system that will serve 12 primary plant rooms that provide heat to the hospital.
Demand Side Management (DSM) Demand Side Management (DSM) puts healthcare facilities in control of their energy spend – using Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning technology to help identify, plan, and act upon demand curtailment opportunities. By using energy analytics software to identify energy flexibility, facilities can unlock hidden value in their power-consuming and generation assets to reduce costs by avoiding peak prices and limiting non- commodity supply charges.
Demand Side Response (DSR) The healthcare sector is in an ideal position to support network operators with flexibility from generation or power- consuming assets, which provides attractive revenue generation
Flexible load
A new CHP system has also been installed at Withington Community Hospital. More than 9,200 energy-efficient LED lights and control systems are also being installed across the two sites.
The project is being delivered under a 15-year Energy Performance Contract with Centrica Business Solutions that will include operations and maintenance support, with backing from the Carbon and Energy Fund and Macquarie. Alan Barlow, UK & Ireland director of Centrica Business Solutions, said: “This investment will deliver a much-needed replacement of the ageing and outdated energy systems at two key hospitals in Greater Manchester, helping to unlock energy
savings and meet carbon reduction targets.” David Furnival, Group director of Estates and Facilities at MFT, added: “Sustainable healthcare will help our budgets stretch further, and the investment that this programme will deliver – alongside the reduction in our carbon emissions – is invaluable. We are pleased to be working in partnership with Centrica Business Solutions to deliver this long-term transformation at two of our hospitals within the Trust.”
opportunities in return for helping to balance power supply and demand to support a smarter grid. DSR (see Fig. 1) allows organisations to find value in their flexible energy using, generating, and storing assets. Energy managers can tap into their spare power capacity to access lucrative financial incentives and create a guaranteed revenue stream to create new value from surplus energy. This works by either reducing, shifting, or sometimes increasing, overall energy consumption to align with network requirements. By using digital technology to monitor and manage energy usage in real time and automate the DSR process, healthcare estates managers can leverage more opportunities from distributed energy. This can be managed within strict boundaries to securely monetise
DSO/DNOs
flexibility, without disrupting operations or compromising power resilience on site.
How does Demand Side Response work?
The first step in implementing DSR is to understand the way a healthcare facility works and uses energy 24/7. This will identify flexibility opportunities, and define operational boundaries, to help determine an action plan that maximises value, while ensuring that hospital services and processes are not impacted. DSR partners, such as Centrica, can manage flexible assets on the market to earn a guaranteed revenue return – using secure software connections that are ISO 27001-compliant.
Virtual Power Plant/Supply Optimisation Platform
Innovation Generators
Transmission system operator
Renewables Storage
Energy management platform
Energy markets Figure 1: How Demand Side Response works: the components of a DSR project.
With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), healthcare facilities also have a new opportunity to participate in Virtual Power Plants (VPP), where the multi- directional flow of energy from both central and distributed resources is aggregated and managed digitally via a supply optimisation platform. In a VPP, multiple sources of energy production, storage, and consumption, are managed and controlled remotely, and in an automated fashion, that allows for real-time balancing of the energy grid. This results in reduced end-user energy costs, but also an increase in the use of sustainably, locally sourced, energy. Centrica Business Solutions’ AI VPP solution utilises revenue stacking, advanced algorithms, and deep learning,
August 2020 Health Estate Journal 69
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