The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the launch of the Hospital Energy Alliance (HEA), an industry-led partnership between the DOE and national healthcare sector leaders to promote energy efficiency and renewable technologies in hospital design, construction, retrofit, operations and maintenance.
Hospitals use 836 trillion BTUs of energy annually and have more than
2.5 times the energy intensity and carbon dioxide emissions of
commercial office buildings, producing more than 30 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions per square foot.
Reducing the energy intensity of this
sector will decrease its carbon footprint and also alleviate stress on
America’s electric power infrastructure. Additionally, new energy
efficiency strategies hold the promise of reduced costs for the sector,
as U.S. hospitals spend over $5 billion annually on energy, often
equaling 1% to 3% of a typical hospital’s operating budget or an
estimated 15% of profits.
DOE representatives joined industry leaders at the Alliance’s first Executive Roundtable on Energy Efficiency and Sustainability at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC this week to discuss strategies to dramatically reduce the sector’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
DOE’s Richard F. Moorer said, “Under the new alliance, hospitals and healthcare organizations will have access to the resources and technical expertise available at DOE and its national laboratories to develop and deploy innovative solutions to cut costs, lower energy usage, and reduce pollution across the country.”
HEA is the third energy alliance launched by DOE as part of its Net-Zero Commercial Building Initiative. In 2008, the Department also joined with large retail stores to form the Retailer Energy Alliance, and in April 2009, DOE joined with commercial real estate companies to introduce the Commercial Real Estate Energy Alliance (CREEA).
The energy alliances are designed to connect building owners and operators with research, advanced technologies, and analytical tools emerging from DOE and its national laboratories.
DOE’s Net-Zero Energy Commercial Building Initiative (CBI) aims to achieve market-ready, zero-energy commercial buildings by 2025. Other components of CBI include the National Laboratory Collaborative on Building Technologies, which concentrates the efforts of five national laboratories toward the Net-Zero energy goal, and the Commercial Building National Accounts, which conducts cost-shared research, development, and deployment for new building technologies among major national companies.
Members of the HEA Steering Committee include representatives from Catholic Healthcare West; Department of Veterans Affairs; Gundersen Lutheran Health System; Hospital Corporation of America; Kaiser Permanente; New York-Presbyterian Hospital; Providence Health & Services; TECO/Texas Medical Center; University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE); American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE); Global Health and Safety Initiative (GHSI); and Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES).
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