CARBON AND ENERGY SAVING
Michael Blades explained, “there have been a lot of parallel workstreams undertaken simultaneously – including looking at the entire building to understand where we could improve the heating system. The North Tyneside General is our largest acute hospital, and we began focusing on all the areas where could reduce its energy consumption. Looking at the heating system took us outside the Energy Centre and into the plantrooms. We looked at the building fabric as a whole, and reducing heat loss. In parallel, we were investing significantly Trust-wide in energy-efficient lighting, firstly installing highly efficient fluorescent lighting, before moving to LED.” Michael Blades explained that the Trust
was one of the early NHS organisations to benefit from the Salix Recycling Fund. He said: “I’ve worked with Salix for almost 20 years now, but in parallel to the Salix funding, we received a substantial NHS Energy Efficiency Fund grant for the lighting scheme three years ago. We spent around £650,000 replacing fluorescent and tungsten lighting with LED.” The lighting replacement project, undertaken at all the Trust’s hospitals except the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, took about a year to complete.
Reviewing their records Returning to the heat decarbonisation project, Michael Blades explained: “One thing we did over a long period was review our records to understand what information we had on the buildings at the North Tyneside site, and the hospital’s heating and ventilation. I thought it vital to give contractors as much information as possible, and from the comments we received from all six bidders – all said this was the easiest tender they had
Chartered Energy Manager, Michael Blades, has been with the NHS for 19 years, 15 of them with the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
undertaken for many years – this proved extremely worthwhile. “Once we’d collated this information, we
went out into the market in 2017 to get an understanding of the companies we could approach, to gauge what was available in terms of using other people’s frameworks.” Not finding a suitable existing framework – Michael Blades said a number were ‘astronomically expensive’ – the team then looked to identify a procurement organisation that would work with it. He explained: “We worked with a company called Ecovate, which helped us develop all the documentation and information we needed to go out into the market for what we now call our SEAM (Strategic Energy and Asset Management’) framework.”
Filling a gap The focus of this was ‘not just to put another framework into the market’, but ‘one that filled the gap that existed
Owen Cusack, an IHEEM member for the past 25 years, is a Chartered Engineer who has been with the Northumbria Trust for 21 years.
for the NHS at the time’. Michael Blades said: “What this does is allow Public Sector Contracting Authorities to use the framework. We’ve since contracted SEAM to Ecovate to market and manage the framework; they remain our partners on that, allowing us to continue focusing on healthcare. So, we went out to tender, and there were six bidders for what was broadly a heat decarbonisation scheme.” The framework was structured so that any ‘very cash-poor’ Trust, without the financial ability to improve its estate, could use the process to replace all its old, inefficient equipment. The savings in energy consumption, and hence spend, would go some way towards funding a 15-25 year project that allows them to meet their Green Plan objectives.
A place for six bidders “At the end of that process, Michael Blades continued, “Owen, Northumbria
June 2022 Health Estate Journal 53
Courtesy of Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
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