SMART BUILDING TECHNOLOGY
reach acceptable national levels of climate controls.
Digital infrastructure Looking to the latest technologies, and digital infrastructure is one route to achieving this. In digitalisation terms, infrastructure is lagging behind other sectors. From our global research we know that 63% of infrastructure stakeholders believe the digitalisation of buildings and power networks is falling behind that of digital progress in other industries. We need digital buildings and grids to be able to achieve Net Zero and address things like building comfort.
Smart hospitals use sensors and IOT-enabled infrastructure to digitise buildings, controlling energy use across a large estate.
by avoiding unnecessary cooling or heating.
Digital infrastructure and the hospital of the future Connected buildings can help optimise where energy is drawn from with the need to cool or heat up buildings. For instance, the amount of energy that HVAC systems are using is less of a concern if all of that energy is being generated by onsite renewables like solar panels. Understanding where your power is coming from, and modelling cooling of the building against how much green energy will be available throughout the day, can help bridge this gap between sustainability and comfort. Unfortunately, it has been quite
common for sensors and IoT-enabled infrastructure to be removed from projects to reduce costs. However, in the years to come I expect there will be an uptick of technology in property development as the effects of climate change become more and more apparent. For hospitals, this could mean automated switching between on-site renewables
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and the grid, to better address energy demand throughout the day – helping to ensure that any renewables investment is contributing to both decarbonisation and reduced operational costs. I expect I’m preaching to the converted when it comes to buildings and sustainability, but in case any readers simply turned up air-conditioning without consideration last summer, it’s worth noting that the built environment is still a huge contributor to carbon emissions, with 40% of global energy emissions coming from buildings.
Significant energy efficiency challenges
Outside of hospitals, as towns and cities evolve with hybrid working, we risk huge sustainability challenges if 50% of the staff who would ‘traditionally’ be in an office are working from home with the heating or fans on all day, while the other 50% do the same in the office. It causes situations where at-home workers and in-office workers combined are creating significant energy efficiency challenges. This means buildings like hospitals may have to do better than ever if we are to
From our global research we know that 63% of infrastructure stakeholders believe the digitalisation of buildings and power networks is falling behind that of digital progress in other industries
46 Health Estate Journal February 2023
Overcoming barriers to digital infrastructure One barrier to adoption has been investment in technology being perceived as prohibitively expensive, particularly when you factor in worries that any technology installed could be obsolete before its payback period. It has created a need for an as-a-service type approach commonplace in the IT world, and bringing it into the ‘OT’, or operational technology, world. Anything-as-a-Service or XaaS models give hospitals better access than ever before to transformational digital technologies, enabling them to shift significant upfront investments into operational costs. It removes the need to ask yourself whether it’s better to invest now to reduce costs in the long term, at a time when major investments can be off- putting given wider economic challenges. Equally, as well as avoiding upfront asset costs, it also removes obsolescence worries, and provides flexibility to choose from a virtually limitless, constantly updating, library of technologies to improve and digitise buildings.
A potential ‘game-changer’ Applying these ‘as a service’ subscription models to buildings and grids is a gamechanger in accelerating the digitalisation of infrastructure. In simple transactional terms, we’re exchanging capital expense for operational expense, which also means budget can be based on a range of outcomes based on usage, value, and defined results. Lowering the upfront cost of technology deployment in this way gives hospitals far greater access to digital tools, which eventually translates into shorter innovation cycles, lower financial risk, and clearly defined payback. To provide some real examples,
Energy as a Service (EaaS) users would be able to forgo capital investment in energy infrastructure, and pay instead for energy based on usage and performance. This would mean removing physical energy assets off their balance sheets, and focusing their attention and investment on core business activities.
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