South Warwickshire NHS Trust tackles emissions, set to reach net zero by 2040
South Warwickshire NHS Trust has received £243,613 of funding as part of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS). The grant which is delivered by Salix Finance on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will see the expansion of its Building Management Systems (BMS) across eight new areas in South Warwickshire Hospital to remotely control its heating and ventilation systems.
The BMS expansion is set to save the hospital 268 tonnes of carbon annually and £70,143 annually in energy costs.
Like all NHS Trusts, the pandemic has put intense pressure on South Warwickshire’s staff due to increased workloads and new expectations regarding heat and ventilation. New air quality requirements aimed to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19 and other airborne viruses resulted in a surge in energy usage.
South Warwickshire NHS Trust sought to address rising energy use and associated carbon emissions and costs by assessing Warwick Hospital’s energy sources and replacing these with energy-efficient technologies.
The benefits of an integrated building management system
The Trust has significantly reduced its annual carbon emissions and updated building management systems across the whole hospital. Cristina Calleja, Sustainability Manager at South Warwickshire Hospital said, “We had three types of BMS, which made it challenging for us to save carbon as our staff were not trained to use them in the most optimal way.”
Since undertaking these building upgrades and in spite of increased ventilation requirements, the Trust’s total gas consumption in Warwick Hospital has only gone up by 1% on the previous year, whilst its electricity consumption went down by 6%.
BMS systems are central to managing energy demand across large hospitals. South Warwickshire’s new integrated system has already shown its value in saving energy and costs throughout a period of high energy usage.
Salix was thankfully a company that we and our Board were quite familiar with. For us it’s an organisation and a system that we trust. Since the pandemic started, the emphasis on ventilation has drastically increased.
Pioneering heat decarbonisation
With the NHS being on course to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040, ahead of the Government’s 2050 target for the whole of the UK, South Warwickshire NHS Trust is currently working on its Green Guidance for 2022.
South Warwickshire Hospital has also received £45,000 of additional grant funding from Salix to tackle its heat decarbonisation. The Trust is currently assessing how to best approach the decarbonisation of its heat once its current equipment expires.
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