ENERGY GENERATION AND MANAGEMENT
hundreds, or even thousands of individual devices using power at any one time. This makes it a challenge to understand which equipment may be operating inefficiently because the plant is in a poor state of repair, or is are staying powered up for longer than it needs to. To help monitor the situation, hospitals can connect ‘smart’ sensors to their equipment that will monitor what is using energy, right down to a single item of equipment, and how much energy it is using. Such sensors also indicate whether equipment is performing inefficiently or if it is about to break down. We know that equipment failure can be particularly dangerous for the healthcare sector – potentially endangering life, and having the correct equipment in place that can identify faults can help to reduce this risk.
Battery storage
For sectors such as healthcare, where cutting costs is paramount, battery storage not only cuts energy bills, but can also generate revenue. Lithium-ion batteries can be charged at cheaper times, and then used when prices increase to better manage energy costs, making them a particularly popular distributed energy solution. They can also store any excess power generated (through systems such as CHP), which can be sold to National Grid for profit. Moreover, battery storage is an ideal solution to help guarantee energy resilience for hospitals, as it can store energy, which can be tapped into when an intermittent supply causes disruption. This is particularly useful for the healthcare sector, whose 24-hour service relies on a constant supply of energy. Our research, published in our June 2018 report, Distributed Energy, Powering the future of healthcare,1
found that nearly
half (43%) of healthcare respondents have suffered an interruption of energy supply due to external factors over the past 12 months. Having systems in place to prevent any failures taking place can reduce this risk.
Speak to an expert
As pressure mounts on the NHS, it has never been more timely for the sector to tackle challenges and improve its efficiency. At a time when government budgets are strained, the NHS needs to be looking at all avenues to cut costs, and there’s a real opportunity to make these savings happen through energy. We recommend talking to a specialist in distributed energy such as Centrica Business Solutions to get the best advice on all the available options.
Reference 1 Distributed Energy, Powering the future of healthcare, June 2018. Centrica [
www.tinyurl.com/y5l625km].
58 Health Estate Journal May 2019
As it generates its own energy, CHP technology can provide reliable and efficient power supply to hospitals that ensures resilience and reduces the healthcare sector’s reliance on the Grid.
Savings mount up in Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust needed to meet stringent carbon reduction targets, while reducing energy costs and finding a way to fund the replacement of ageing heating, lighting, and energy control systems at Shrewsbury Hospital. Centrica Business Solutions installed a 1,150 kilowatt combined cooling heat and power trigeneration system, together with new boilers, replaced the asbestos- lagged district heating main, and installed new energy-efficient lighting, and a new building energy management system.
The trigeneration technology now provides the hospital with medium temperature hot water and steam. This is supplemented by a new composite boiler and a gas fired boiler.
The project has enabled the hospital to save more than £780,000 a year, reducing its carbon footprint by some 2,000 tonnes annually.
Centrica andTony Orton
Tony Orton is the head of business development for the healthcare sector at Centrica Business Solutions. He joined the company in 2015, and has over 15 years’ experience helping hospitals and NHS Trusts develop and install distributed energy systems that utilise energy technology such as combined heat and power units, standby generation, battery storage, and biomass boilers.
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Centrica plc is an international energy and services company. Its two global divisions, Centrica Consumer and Centrica Business, supply energy and energy-related services to over 26 million customer accounts in the UK, Ireland, and North America, through strong brands such as British Gas, Direct Energy, and Bord Gáis Energy, with the support of 12,000 engineers and technicians. The company says it is also developing new and innovative products, offers, and services, for customers through its five growth businesses: Energy Supply, Services, Connected Home, Distributed Energy & Power (DE&P), and Energy Marketing & Trading. DE&P offers integrated energy solutions for commercial and industrial customers, ‘providing customers with end-to-end services – from insight to optimisation and solutions’.
Centrica added: “Innovation underpins everything we do, which is why we’re investing £100 m in Centrica Innovations, a new venture to identify, incubate, and accelerate, new technologies and innovations that can help provide the right offers, products, and services, for our customers.”
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