NHS Trust uses funding to modernise energy infrastructure

Utilising the Carbon and Energy Fund framework, Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust will use £6.3m to install new high efficiency, low carbon infrastructure comprising of natural gas Combined Heat and Power (CHPs), lighting, pumps, chillers, a boiler plant and water saving measures.

In addition to delivering annual cost savings of £1.2m, the project will reduce the Trust’s carbon footprint by approximately 6,200 tonnes per year across the two sites. This is equivalent to removing 3,900 cars from the road, or the carbon sequestered annually by 5,082 acres of forest.

According to ENER-G, who have been assigned to take on the project, each site will have new lighting schemes, with a combined total of nearly 7,000 highly efficient LED and fluorescent light fittings – designed to displace up to 9% of the current electrical demand on site. The company says that further energy efficiency improvements will reduce the electrical load by an additional 1%.

CHP will be the “cornerstone of the energy efficient infrastructure” at both hospitals, says ENER-G. The systems have been sized to allow for the 10% electrical reduction from demand-side energy improvements, ensuring maximum operational efficiency of the CHP.

At Arrowe Park Hospital, a 1710kW CHP system will displace up to 70% of the site’s electrical and thermal demands, while at Clatterbridge Hospital a CHP unit will also be installed – displacing up to 60% of Clatterbridge’s electrical and thermal demands.

Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust director of estates and facilities David Hounslea said: “This ambitious project will reduce the carbon footprint at our two acute hospitals by approximately 30% and will be financed through the energy savings we generate.

“This scheme builds on existing energy efficiency projects, which have already reduced the Trust’s carbon dioxide emissions by 14,000 tonnes per year since 1999,” he added.

Completion of the installation works will be in late summer 2014.

Leigh Stringer