Energy use in hospital wards. An analysis based on activity related key performance indicators

ABSTRACT The discussions about energy use have increased year by year everywhere in the society, and so also in the healthcare sector. But what is actually energy use in a hospital facility, and what affects it? The typical way today to express the energy use is in kWh/m2. The problem with a key performance indicator that is expressed as energy use in relation to a specific area is that it does not take into account the activity in the building. Even though the activity to a very high extent affects the energy use. The purpose with this project has been to analyse the variation between three different hospital wards with regard to the electric power of the equipment and the energy use. The aim has been to point out the need of including the activity when discussing energy use in hospital facilities. This project has been carried out with a study of previous analyses within the field, an inventory of three hospital wards, interviews and discussions with experienced persons in the field. Persons like: the employees in the analysed wards, the department responsible for the medical technical equipment in the hospital and consultants and contractors with experience from design of hospitals. The results show that independent on type of hospital ward, lighting and office equipment stand for a large amount of the energy use. Furthermore, when it comes to moderate and high technical intense hospital wards, also the medical technical equipment significantly affects the total energy use of the hospital. The conclusion that has been drawn is that it is not most optimal to discuss energy use of hospital facilities in terms of kWh/m2; in some way the activity must be included