Study of the energy intensity by built areas in a medium-sized Spanish hospital

Abstract

Assessing energy use in healthcare buildings requires identifying consumption profiles regularly. Keeping this in mind, this paper studies the energy intensity of a hospital and sets specific energy performance indicators by healthcare area. The authors analysed a hospital located in the province of Madrid (Spain), equipped with 182 beds and an area of usage of 25,177 m2. The heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system (HVAC) and steam production equipment (63.0%) and medical equipment (18.8%)—which includes electromedicine (11.6%), radiology (4.2%), radiotherapy (0.7%) and nuclear medicine (2.4%)—accounted for 81.8% of the energy consumed. Throughout the analysis, the authors found that operating theatres and intensive care units demanded more than 1000 kWh/m2 per year, while catering and nuclear medicine required between 500 and 1000 kWh/m2 per year and radiology between 350 and 500 kWh/m2, and most of the other units did not exceed 250 kWh/m2. The wide variability of these results shows that each area’s energy consumption should be studied separately for an appropriate energy management. These indicators are useful for benchmarking between hospitals, thus prioritising energetically efficient investments.