Hospital electrical power and energy efficiency project information.
Most hospitals run a monthly generator start-up to ensure that the generator can start in an emergency. This may or may not be under a hospital load and more often than not is a brief test. More prolonged testing should be conducted at least every 6 months or annually. If there is a risk to the hospital facility, load banks can be used to provide a dummy load.
Hospitals typically have on-site power generation in the form of diesel powered standby generators and may also use uninterruptible power supplies to protect critical IT networks, laboratory equipment and patient systems. Provided the generator fuel capacity can be maintained the hospital can run independent of the grid power supply. Further developments that could help to make a hospital grid independent include local renewable power generation (solar PV and wind turbine) and local energy storage in the form of lithium-ion battery packs.
One of the first steps is to appoint an energy manager and implement an energy management system. The system should provide the energy manager with the necessary information to track energy usage, establish benchmarks and drive initiatives forward to improvement energy usage. Often energy initiatives fall into three categories: sourcing, systems and people. Sourcing is a review of the most competitive energy sources; systems looks at energy efficiency improvements in terms of system upgrades and people is concerned with processes, education and norms, which all require review and monitoring.