Abstract
The race against climate change has been a great challenge for years, and the UK government has taken serious steps towards achieving the net-zero carbon target by 2050. Technology is leading the way and innovation is believed to be a key solution. Nevertheless, tackling the issue, by attempting to limit the waste in energy, due to negative energy usage behaviour, has proven to be a successful approach that is capable of complementing other technology-based initiatives. The first step towards this is to promote energy-conscious behaviour and pinpoint where savings can be made. Thereby, this paper contributes to the existing literature, by presenting a new methodology to identify potential energy waste and negative energy usage behaviour in an NHS hospital. The paper presents an analysis of electricity consumption vs occupancy during minimal consumption periods (i.e, bank holidays and weekends) and it presents a log of equipment left switched on outside of working hours, in order to highlight the level of energy-conscious behaviour. The results revealed that the proposed technique is not only able to identify negative energy usage behaviour amongst the hospital staff but helps identify areas where immediate energy savings can be made, with potential savings of more than 30,000 pounds, if action is taken.
Highlights
Management of energy consumption and carbon emissions has been an ongoing challenge for years and has lead to high energy costs and negative impacts on the environment [1,2]
Some research studies rely on achieving energy efficiency, by targeting heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, lighting, and office equipment [5,7,8]; other studies focus on energy usage behaviour [9,10,11,12,13,14]
The analysis of the electricity usage and occupancy in the wards/departments selected for this study, where the aim is to enable the identification of negative energy usage behaviour by comparing electricity consumption in weeks with and without bank holidays
Summary
Management of energy consumption and carbon emissions has been an ongoing challenge for years and has lead to high energy costs and negative impacts on the environment [1,2]. The building sector is an active energy consumer [4], accounting for 40% of the energy consumed in the European Union [5] and 34% of the world’s total energy consumption [3], with 9% for commercial ones, as per the International Energy Agency (IEA) This translates into 12% of global CO2 emissions [6]. Several research studies have been conducted on the impact of occupants’ behaviour on energy consumption in the building sector [30,31,32,33]. The invisibility of usage leads to the lack of consideration of the high energy usage consequences This turns the individual to a state of ignorance of the impacts of their actions, that is, negative energy usage behaviour. Providing feedback to individuals can result in self-awareness of their energy usage, which leads to energy-conscious behaviour and reduced carbon footprint [37]
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