Tag Archives: Hospitals

Barts links energy saving to patient care and saves £105,000 in first year

May 2014: Guardian article on how St Bartholomew’s (Barts) and the Royal London Hospital in London wanted to cut a £12m annual energy bill. “The trust involved three external partners: behavioural change experts Global Action Plan, technology pioneers GE and facilities management specialists Skanska. Each has sustainability at the heart of its rationale and they set about involving employees in two of the trust’s six hospitals in behavioural changes. By concentrating less on the energy message and more on the provision of care, the campaign won the support of staff and saved more than £100,000 and the equivalent of 800 tonnes of CO2 in its first year.

Further details are set out on Global Action Plan’s website here and here.

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London installations removed from EUETS

6 December 2012: Ahead of the start of Phase III of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EUETS), which starts on 1 January 2013, DECC has today introduced new legislation which looks to simplify the rules around the CO2 ‘cap and trade’ scheme.

The EUETS covers around 1,100 energy-intensive industrial installations in the UK such as power stations, refineries and large manufacturing plants. Not surprisingly, not many of these participants are located at London, however, there are a few at the very lowest end of the EUETS requirements, and it is these sites which are addressed in the changes made today. DECC’s press release states that these ‘small emitters’, many of which are hospitals, have been given the opportunity to “‘opt-out’ of the EU ETS from 2013 into a lighter touch alternative scheme, which will address the disproportionately higher administrative costs faced by these installations.”

The ‘opt out’ list includes the following schemes in London:

Other sites include the Hammersmith Hospital Energy Centre and the University College London Hospital.

Common to many of these installations is that they had chosen to utilise Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems to provide greater energy resilience on site, access more affordable heat and power, and reduce the site’s overall environmental impact related to energy consumption. However, by choosing to install more energy efficient generation directly on site, rather than importing electricity from the grid, they also passed the threshold on energy consumption for inclusion under the EUETS rules (20MW thermal input). This brought these relatively modest generation sites under the complex EUETS rules, hence, this new action by Government to simplify the rules under their operation under the trading scheme is to be welcomed.

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25 heat network projects being supported in London

November 2012: A recent speech by Ed Davey, Secretary of State at DECC on the department’s emerging policy around heat energy highlighted how the efficient use of heat is being promoted in the capital through its promotion of district heating. Mr Davey stated:

“London contains an example of the potential. The Greater London Authority is supporting 25 heat network projects. These have the capacity to leverage over £230 million of investment.”

A recent Mayoral question provides a little more detail on where these schemes are:

“The Decentralised Energy Project Delivery Unit is currently supporting the development of 25 decentralised projects. The following lists the activities with the boroughs:
Projects at procurement: Brent and Camden;
• Projects at post-feasibility: Croydon, Enfield, Haringey, Waltham Forest and Westminster;
• Projects at feasibility: Southwark, Islington, Hammersmith and Fulham, Newham, Sutton;
• Projects at pre-feasibility/energy master planning: Hillingdon, Ealing, and Westminster.”

Further information on Brent’s South Kilburn DE project can be found here.
Details of the innovative scheme being supported by Camden in Gospel Oak can be found here (and recent October newsletter here), which is using heat from a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant situated in the Royal Free Hospital, to provide low carbon affordable heat to nearby residents.
Other information can be found in the various borough heat map reports posted on www.londonheatmap.org.uk

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Hospital Heat and Power at Guy’s and St. Thomas’

September 2011: Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust have hosted a tour of their two Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plants which have, since their commissioning in 2009,  helped the Trust reduce CO2 emissions at the hospitals by a total of almost 11,300 tons per year and save more than £1.5 million in energy costs annually. Further information is detailed on the following news release.

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Camden Using DE to tackle Fuel Poverty

September 2011: Further detail from, energy services company MITIE, on the innovative Combined Heat and Power (CHP) scheme being installed at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, where “surplus heat from the hospital plant will be piped to a new energy centre in the Gospel Oak area of Camden to provide hot water and heat to residents. As a result, up to 1,500 council home tenants will benefit from the Council’s ability to procure energy at a much cheaper rate than would otherwise be available to the council commercially.” See earlier stories on this project here, here and here.

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Royal Marsden CHP

27 July 2011:  The Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton has announced that it will be installing a Combined Heat and Power plant (CHP) on site. The capacity of the gas-fired CHP unit isn’t given, but further information on the project is provided on the following press release from MITIE, the engineering company leading the development.

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Carbon and Energy Fund

July 2011: The Carbon and Energy Fund is a new £100M+ fund that is the sucessor to the Energy and Sustainability fund. The fund exists to fund and support projects in the NHS that meet a certain level of carbon savings per £1000 of investment required. Five projects worth £23m have signed up to tranche 1. This tranche is full and enters mini-competition in July 2011. The Fund intends to facilitate the delivery of 60 upgrades for NHS Trusts over the next 4 years in a series of tranches – details of the next funding tranche are here.
A number of London-based case studies of energy saving actions previously taken are available including:
Royal Free Hospital, London
Natural History Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum London
Kingston Hospital

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Hospital’s Decentralised Energy System

26 April 2011: Mitie have been commissioned by the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead to develop an energy centre incorporating onsite CHP generation.

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Hospital to heat Camden homes

4 April 2011: The Royal Free Hospital in Camden will use a combined heat and power (CHP) network to supply 1,500 Camden Council homes in nearby estates with lower cost energy.The project, due to start at the end of the year, will provide around half the total amount needed for the homes, with surplus energy from a heating plant at the hospital being pumped into an energy centre, which Camden Council will build on one of its nearby estates.The rest of the energy needed by the residents will come from the energy centre, which will also be able to supply energy for heating and hot water if the system at the Royal Free is interrupted, such as for repairs and maintenance. Further information from Camden here.

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