Healthcare Energy Management
Improve Your Bottom Line with Energy Performance
Hospitals – with constrained operating budgets, complicated building systems and high energy demands – require energy management. For a hospital averaging a 5% margin, every $1,000 in energy savings has the same bottom line impact as a $20,000 increase in revenue. All too often, the facilities staff does not have the time or resources to identify and develop energy efficiency opportunities that will improve building system functionality and save operating costs. With many years of hands-on building commissioning work and energy efficiency program evaluations, Cx Associates has the expertise to help you reduce operating costs by identifying, planning, and verifying energy efficiency upgrades.
Planning for the Future (Energy Audits and Master Plans)
Running a large and sometimes aging healthcare facility is no easy task. When issues like occupant comfort, higher than expected energy bills, or equipment failures occur, it can feel like a game of whack-a-mole just to keep things operational. Planning and prioritizing equipment upgrades often takes a back seat to other more pressing operational issues. Cx Associates can provide you with a road map that addresses your biggest pain points first and guides your team to long-term operational efficiency. Energy audits coupled with a clear plan for execution can help your hospital improve your Energy Star score over time and will support you in the pursuit of recognition such as the Practice Green Health Awards.
Persistent Benefits, Improved Operations, and Resiliency Through Retrocommissioning (RCx)
Retrocommissioning identifies and implements programming and other adjustments to building systems in order to improve the efficiency and efficacy of the equipment. Your hospital is likely an amalgamation of buildings and systems that have evolved over time, and requires a schedule of almost continuous system assessment and replacement. Cx Associates takes a holistic approach by studying the disparate systems, sniffing out problem areas, and prioritizing improvements. In addition to realizing energy savings, retrocommissioning improves the operating conditions of the equipment – extending their lifetime – and addresses building issues such as occupant comfort.
Try Before You Buy (Energy Modeling)
Hospital capital project spending is challenging. Budgets are tight and competition for health care spending is rightfully tough. Before committing the budget for an equipment overhaul, energy modeling can help chart the course for the upgrades. Building energy modeling is a powerful tool used to understand the energy consumption of all of the building equipment. Cx Associates has developed hundreds of energy models, calibrating the models to utility and metered equipment data for an accurate picture of how the interaction of the building systems generates the annual energy consumption and peak demands. Models are a tool that will help you prioritize energy efficiency investments and inform long range planning.
Navigating Utility Incentive Programs
Because hospitals are big energy consumers, they are major contributors to the pool of money that funds energy efficiency incentive programs. Recouping those dollars happens in two ways – the incentives you receive from participating, and the energy savings you achieve which reduces your total energy bill. As a facilities director, accessing these dollars will offset the costs for audits, retrocommissioning and new equipment. Cx Associates has a long track record of working with efficiency programs, maximizing their financial support for projects, and calculating and delivering reliable energy savings that you and your utility can count on. We can serve as your liaison to maximize incentives, simplify paperwork, and meet program requirements to streamline the participation process for you.
Get All of the Benefits (Equipment Retrofit)
Replacing existing equipment to achieve energy savings can solve a variety of problems that go well beyond energy benefits. In a recent retrofit project, Cx Associates worked with a hospital to identify the OR air handlers as a retrofit target. The project priority is reliability and resiliency – the energy savings, which were the instigating force are now an added benefit after ensuring no OR downtime, improving OR controls and adding cooling back-up. Equipment retrofits can address a variety of problems delivering improved comfort, eliminate issues associated with oversizing, increase control and monitoring capability all while delivering cost effective energy savings for your hospital. Cx Associates will identify the comprehensive package of benefits delivered by retrofits to help you receive funding to keep your facility operating optimally.
