I'm working with a 200-bed hospital here in Cincinnati on Duke Energy that's using 35 kWh/sq ft annually. Every benchmark I can find says hospitals should be 25-30 kWh/sq ft but this seems low to me. Their bills are $85,000/month on Rate LM-TOD and they're questioning whether they're actually efficient or if something's wrong with my analysis. The facility is from 2015 so fairly modern. Anyone else seeing lower hospital usage than published benchmarks?
Hospital energy benchmarks completely wrong?
Carla, 35 kWh/sq ft actually seems pretty reasonable for a modern hospital. The older benchmarks might be skewed by facilities that haven't upgraded. Here in Kentucky we've got a regional medical center that's hitting 28 kWh/sq ft after a major renovation. LED lighting, new HVAC controls, and high-efficiency chillers made a huge difference. What's the hospital's specialty? Critical care and surgical suites use way more energy than general med/surg floors.
Good point Vera. This hospital has a pretty full service line - emergency department, ICU, surgical suites, imaging including MRI and CT. I did include the central plant and parking garage in the total usage but maybe not the square footage calculation. Let me double-check those numbers. The MRI alone probably pulls 50-60 kW continuously just for the cryo system.
Duane makes an excellent point about IT loads. We're seeing hospitals in Ohio that are basically running small data centers now. Electronic health records, digital imaging, telemedicine - it all adds up. Plus they have to maintain redundant systems for life safety. A lot of the published benchmarks are from before the digital transformation of healthcare really took off.
Great discussion everyone. I've been seeing this trend across multiple industries where published benchmarks are becoming less reliable due to technology changes. Hospitals are a perfect example - the energy profile of a modern hospital is completely different from one built even 10 years ago. We might need to start developing our own regional benchmark databases. Has anyone tried reaching out to utility energy efficiency programs for more current data?
Randy, that's a great idea about utility programs. Duke Energy actually has a healthcare efficiency initiative but I haven't asked them for benchmark data. They might have current usage profiles from their program participants. I'll reach out to my contact there and see what they can share. It would be really valuable to have region-specific hospital data that reflects current technology and operations.
Carla, let us know what Duke shares. PSE has been pretty open with their C&I program data when I've asked. They obviously can't give specific customer information but they've provided anonymized usage ranges by building type and size. It's been really helpful for benchmarking analysis. I think utilities are starting to realize this kind of data sharing helps everyone identify more efficiency opportunities.
This is turning into a really valuable conversation. I'm going to reach out to LG&E about their commercial data too. It seems like we could almost start our own informal benchmark sharing network if utilities are willing to participate. Better data helps us do better audits, which helps customers save more energy, which benefits everyone including the utilities.
Pete, I love that idea. We could even set up a shared database or spreadsheet where we anonymously contribute benchmark data from our audits. Obviously we'd have to be careful about client confidentiality but aggregate data by region and building type could be really valuable. Bob, maybe this is something AAUBA could facilitate officially?
Count me in on a benchmark sharing initiative. We've got data from about 50 commercial clients here in Oregon across different building types. Anonymized and aggregated, it could really help fill in the gaps where published benchmarks are outdated. Healthcare, manufacturing, and data centers are probably the biggest areas where current benchmarks don't reflect reality.
I think this benchmark sharing concept has real potential. Let me talk to the AAUBA board about setting up some kind of formal data sharing platform. We'd need to work out the legal and confidentiality issues but the technical side shouldn't be too difficult. In the meantime, anyone interested in participating could start collecting their data in a standardized format. I'll work on some guidelines and post them in a new thread.
Carla, don't forget about the data center and IT infrastructure. Modern hospitals have massive server farms for electronic health records, PACS imaging storage, and telehealth systems. We had a hospital client here in Oregon that was spending $12,000/month just cooling their data center. That stuff wasn't even a consideration when the older benchmarks were established.
I think Pete's right about the benchmarks being outdated. We have several hospital clients here in Washington on PSE that are running 30-38 kWh/sq ft depending on their services. The ones with imaging centers, cath labs, and OR suites are definitely on the higher end. Also, are you including all the support buildings like central plant, laundry, and parking structures? That can really skew the per-square-foot numbers.