Energy Strategy, NHS Trust, UK

Abricon have worked with the Estates department of South Devon Healthcare NHS Trust since the late 1990’s. During this time our key role has been to strategically advise the Trust on a wide range of energy and environmental issues.

There are plans to completely re-develop the main hospital within the Trust with a new 500 – 600 bed PFI hospital on the existing Torbay District Hospital site. As such, by about 2012, around 80% of the existing hospital will be demolished.

The Trust are committed to reducing their carbon emissions and foresee that managing the transition from the current situation to the completed project will raise many complex issues. For example, the majority of the existing hospital is heated by steam supplied from a central boiler house - however this boiler house may need to be demolished as part of the enabling works for the PFI project.

In preparing an energy strategy, Abricon identified key issues to address in order to continue to maintain services whilst managing their consumption. These were categorised into:

• Short term issues (next 3 months)
• Medium term issues (within the next 6 – 9 months)
• Longer term issues (within 12 – 18 months).

As the PFI project plans are firmed up, the estates department will be able to refer back to the strategy and identify issues potentially adversely affecting the Trust’s energy consumption. These issues can then be individually addressed.

This investigation identified a large number of issues that were all inter-related. These included:

• The distribution of mechanical ventilation within the office spaces
• The operation and performance of the BMS
• The use of the manually openable windows
• The balancing of systems
• The inadequate sizing of some cooling coils

Two detailed reports of recommendations to reduce energy consumption were prepared but also help to maintain acceptable comfort conditions.