Parkland earns second consecutive award for energy efficiency
DALLAS – Parkland Health & Hospital System has been awarded a $134,738 cash incentive from Oncor’s Government Facilities Program for installing water-cooled chillers in the hospital’s new central utility plant.
This award marks the second year of energy efficiency recognition for Parkland. In 2012, it was awarded $1,179 in Oncor incentives for installing a high-efficiency cooling system at the E. Carlyle Smith, Jr. Health Center in Grand Prairie.
The program helps local governments save energy and money by providing no-cost facility improvement recommendations and financial incentives based on the total amount of energy the equipment will save. The equipment Parkland installed in 2012 and 2013 will save approximately 1,196,800 kilowatt-hours of energy annually. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, these energy savings are roughly equivalent to eliminating the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 176 passenger vehicles.
“Oncor’s Government Facilities Program provided vital resources to help us make these improvements,” said James Tucker, Parkland’s Director of Organizational Sustainability and Energy Conservation. “We’re proud of the energy efficiency tradition we’ve established.”
Parkland’s central utility plant (CUP) generates utilities for campus with reliability and efficiency at the forefront. The most impactful measure in the CUP is the heat pump chiller (HPC), Tucker said.
“The heat pump chiller’s net efficiency is far greater than separate heating and cooling equipment,” he said, noting that the CUP’s net heating efficiency is greater than 100 percent. “This is possible since the heat pump’s electrical energy input is accounted for with the cooling efficiency – making the heating output from the cooling process essentially ‘free’.”
Oncor also offers free energy planning to participating government customers by working with participants to identify energy-saving improvements at existing facilities and incorporate efficient design into new construction.
“Now more than ever, it’s vital that our government organizations have the resources they need to implement energy efficiency projects in their facilities,” said Oncor Area Manager Andrea Sanders. “The Government Facilities Program is just another way Oncor is working to help improve our communities.”
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