NHS “HAS HUGE SCOPE TO REDUCE ENERGY CONSUMPTION”
With the government insisting that the NHS find £22 billion in efficiency savings it will have to examine all areas of expenditure, and the Building & Engineering Services Association (B&ES) say that millions of pounds could be shaved from NHS running costs if estate managers take a closer look at how their heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems are performing. B&ES say that without doubt the NHS has huge scope to reduce energy consumption and cut their substantial energy costs.
3 July 2015 – Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has fired a warning shot at the NHS saying the time for excuses over cost savings is over; reminding the NHS that they need to find £22 billion a year of efficiency savings by 2020 in return for the extra £8 billion a year from the Government.
To get anywhere close to making these enormous savings the NHS will have to scrutinise all areas of costs, and the Building & Engineering Services Association (B&ES) say that millions of pounds could be shaved from NHS running costs if estates managers take a closer look at how their heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems are performing.
B&ES Head of Sustainability, David Frise, comments, “Without doubt the NHS has huge scope to reduce energy consumption and cut their substantial energy costs.
“A good starting point is for estate managers to carry out extensive measuring and monitoring to investigate how well their heating and cooling systems are operating. In many cases they will find they are working against each other because occupants have been changing the temperature settings. This situation is often made worse by building users opening the windows because they feel hot, rather than turning the heating down. Facilities managers could also make sure there is a temperature ‘dead band’ programmed into controls to ensure the heating and cooling systems do not end up running at the same time and wasting huge amounts of energy.
“Ventilation systems are often overlooked when managers search for potential savings; yet just by optimising the way air is supplied to a single operating theatre could save a hospital £5,000 in annual running costs, and that could add up to £10m a year if replicated right across the whole of the NHS and would also avoid 80 tonnes of carbon emissions.”
Describing these as areas of “low hanging fruit” that almost every healthcare facility can find to quickly and cheaply improve its energy efficiency, Mr Frise adds, “Any ventilation fan that is over five years old is almost certainly inefficient and a replacement would pay for itself in less than three years. Healthcare FMs could cut running costs by 29% by replacing the fans in their air handling units, and the addition of heat recovery to ventilation systems can reduce costs in non-clinical areas by up to 30%. Even more basic measures like having grilles and filters cleaned regularly can save thousands of pounds a year.”
Mr Frise also says that not enough is done to take advantage of ‘free cooling’ opportunities – where the system will cool the building without the need for chiller plant to operate. He points out that partial free cooling is possible even when the outside temperature is as high as 18ºC: “We need to train people to take advantage of this so that refrigerant plant only runs when it is really needed.” He said that the majority of ‘quick wins’ in hospitals are linked to making better use of Building Management Systems (BMS) that are already in place, adding that “NHS managers usually say there is no money for energy efficiency measures, but there is so much that can be done without spending anything and further substantial savings to be made with relatively small investments given that we are talking about such enormously energy intensive buildings.”
B&ES is also urging the Department of Health to renew the publicly funded £50m pilot programme run by several trusts last year to trial energy saving strategies and to bolster the department’s own Encode sustainability design guidance. Trusts that ran the pilot schemes were able to reinvest their savings from reduced energy bills in frontline patient care.
For more information about energy efficiency measures for buildings visit the B&ES website: http://www.b-es.org.
Ends
Issued on behalf of the Building & Engineering Services Association (B&ES) by Next Step Marketing Ltd
Media enquiries to: Heather Lambert. Tel: 44(0)1256 472020;
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Note to Editors
Since its formation in 1904, B&ES, the Building & Engineering Services Association (formerly the HVCA) has represented the interests of companies engaged in a wide range of building and engineering services disciplines.
B&ES helps its members to build successful businesses by being the leading trade association for integrated building and engineering services and renewable technologies. It is a unifying force that promotes and monitors excellence; provides quality advice, guidance, training and support; generates market-leading thinking; and shapes the commercial environment through active representation.
B&ES members are subject to regular, third-party inspection and assessment of their technical competence and commercial capability, carried out by an independent certification body at least every three years.
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