Health estates and facilities managers are failing to achieve efficiencies through the use of energy-saving technologies because they do not have the right measurement and monitoring systems in place, it has been claimed.
Speaking at the 2013 IHEEM Conference in Manchester this week, Brett Goodyear, operations manager at energy consultant, EP&T Global, said that all too often millions of pounds is spent on state-of-the-art equipment which is then not correctly used, meaning trusts miss out on opportunities to secure significant savings.
Trusts like to think that by building new developments they are addressing inefficient stock and assets, but if you walk up to any estates director who has a BREEAM endorsed building and has started to run operations, they will often tell you that the energy intensity is no better and sometimes it’s worse
And he urged healthcare organisations to forge partnerships with private sector experts in order to ensure that in future all energy efficiency interventions are optimised.
He said: “Trusts like to think that by building new developments they are addressing inefficient stock and assets, but if you walk up to any estates director who has a BREEAM endorsed building and has started to run operations, they will often tell you that the energy intensity is no better and sometimes it’s worse. It is the same in the commercial sector. “Often this is because of how the buildings have been designed and how they have been handed over.
“There has recently been a lot of investment in combined heat and power (CHP) schemes. These are big projects and they require a partnership strategy. At the moment all too often we put in these large systems, but actually delivering savings can be a problem.
“It is naive to think that just because buildings are designed well they are run well.”
Metering systems are therefore vital to ensure that equipment deployed is paying dividends, Goodyear added.
“People put in things like CHPs and variable speed drivers without thinking how they are going to monitor them,” he told the conference.
It is naive to think that just because buildings are designed well they are run well
“Metering and monitoring has got a bad name because there have been so many failed projects, but this is because people lack the understanding of where to put these things.
“You need to look at where you are using energy in a building and put good-quality monitors there. It always surprises me why some organisations would put in a £100 meter to monitor a multi-million pound chiller.
“If you concentrate on the basics and put good monitoring systems in place you can achieve operational savings.”
Using meters to monitor buildings and energy use means estates and facilities managers can get the most out of their equipment.
Goodyear said: “Systems should be capable of generating and storing large amounts of data and the architect of the system needs to enable you to get that data out and share it with whoever you need to.
“If you have processes in place that enable you to look at where inefficiencies are then the paybacks are amazing. You can get really good savings.
Working with one organisation in London, EP&T Global highlighted 64 possible interventions that could help to curb energy use. Just by changing how the chiller pumps were used saved £6,300 a year. With similar, of greater, savings possible in all 64 cases, the overall potential was huge.
Using monitoring and metering systems means you can see where efficiencies are possible and you can make very significant savings
“Hospitals are 24/7 operations, but that doesn’t mean you necessarily have to run everything to full capacity all day,” said Goodyear.
“Using monitoring and metering systems means you can see where efficiencies are possible and you can make very significant savings.
“One client in London saved 27% on energy bills just from introducing monitoring systems.
“There are all sort of solutions out there, but at the moment not enough time and energy goes into putting them in properly.”