Got a regional hospital with a new surgical suite that includes several clean rooms. Their demand charges have tripled since the renovation - hitting $47K last month alone. The HVAC systems for these rooms run 24/7 and apparently have some kind of pressure monitoring that kicks in additional equipment randomly. Anyone dealt with medical clean room energy issues?
Hospital clean room HVAC causing crazy demand spikes
Donna - clean rooms are energy hogs by design. The pressure cascade systems often cycle on/off based on door openings and air quality sensors. You might want to look at demand response options or battery storage to shave those peaks. Some hospitals have saved 30-40% on demand charges with proper load management.
Had a similar issue with a cardiac cath lab expansion. Turned out the HVAC contractor hadn't programmed the staging properly - everything was coming online at once instead of sequenced starts. Fixed the controls and demand dropped by 200 kW. Might be worth having an energy engineer review the system operation.
Steve that's a great point about the staging. I'll suggest they bring in an HVAC controls specialist. These demand charges are killing their budget and they're threatening to just shut down the clean rooms during peak hours, which obviously isn't an option.