Sustainable healthcare is a prime concern for many facility managers today. Between climate change, depletion of natural resources, and rising energy costs, healthcare facility leaders face increasing pressure to pursue more sustainable, environmentally friendly practices.
The healthcare sector contributes an estimated 8.5 percent of carbon emissions in the U.S. While many hospital leaders want to achieve healthcare sustainability, it’s a nebulous idea lacking a clear framework for success.
That’s why global healthcare nonprofit organization The Joint Commission recently launched a new certification program: Sustainable Healthcare Certification. This certification offers a standard for healthcare facility managers seeking to save energy and costs, improve patient care, and comply with governmental regulations.
A voluntary program, Sustainable Healthcare Certification provides clear benchmarks and guidelines for hospitals and other facilities on the journey toward healthcare sustainability. To seek certification, hospitals must be located in the U.S. or operated by U.S.-based government entities, be in compliance with federal laws, such as Medicare Conditions of Participation, and already have some systems in place to track emissions data.
The goals and benefits of certification include:
Sustainable Healthcare Certification gives healthcare facility managers the objective benchmarks they need to successfully move toward sustainability goals.
From the Joint Commission’s perspective, Sustainable Healthcare Certification lays the groundwork for decreasing the healthcare sector’s carbon emissions and giving facility managers clear visibility into environmental impact. The project’s key objectives include:
Healthcare facility managers who are interested in attaining Sustainability Certification need to have baseline data on three greenhouse gas (GHG) emission sources. Possible types of GHG sources to track include energy use, purchased electricity, anesthetic gas use, pressurized metered-dose inhaler use, fleet vehicle carbon-based fuel use, and waste disposal.
As a healthcare organization or hospital goes through the certification process, the Joint Commission offers support and resources to help you succeed. The goals for certification include:
Energy management is a key requirement of the Sustainability Certification process — and for good reason. Energy management is a critical concern for U.S. healthcare facilities, which spend more than $8 billion on energy every year. To reduce costs and carbon emissions, facilities must find ways to more efficiently manage energy usage.
Adding a microgrid solution to manage energy consumption onsite is a viable strategy for energy management. According to Microgrid Knowledge, “A microgrid is a self-sufficient energy system that serves a discrete geographic footprint.” It typically includes several components: distributed energy sources (DES) such as solar panels, a battery energy storage system (BESS), and a software management system, and covers a limited area, such as a hospital campus.
Setting up a traditional microgrid can be a time-consuming process, especially if you have to seek permits, approvals, and — in the U.S. — an interconnection agreement allowing you to connect to the main grid. To avoid those complications, consider choosing a turnkey microgrid solution like R3Di® and Virtual Utility®. With R3Di®, you can by-pass the costly engineering and permitting stages with a ready-to-use system that continuously monitors energy assets, weather, and market conditions to ensure optimal energy efficiency and cost savings for your hospital site.
Adoption of a microgrid solution along with alternate power sources can help you achieve better environmental sustainability — and resiliency. With R3Di®, you can tie in alternate onsite energy sources such as solar panels, wind turbines, and natural gas generators to ensure uninterrupted power for your facility even during power outages or surges.
Adding a microgrid can help healthcare facilities optimize energy usage, writes Lance Haines of Schneider Electric in a guest post for Microgrid Knowledge. “Along with the need for digital transformation, healthcare facilities require an energy transformation to modernize their electrical infrastructure with a microgrid,” Haines writes. “Microgrids can manage a portfolio of distributed energy assets while increasing resilience.”
For example, Kaiser Permanente’s Richmond Medical Center was the first California healthcare facility to adopt a microgrid system. The Richmond Medical Center microgrid includes renewable energy sources, battery storage, and backup power generator. Implementing the microgrid saves 2.63 MWh of energy for the hospital each year, yielding a yearly savings of up to $394,000.
A leading provider of integrated solutions for power generation and distribution, e2Companies is uniquely positioned as a partner on your healthcare facility’s journey to sustainable energy management. Since 2009, e2Companies has monitored compliance, service, and demand response activity for over 540 assets across 120 locations with over 114,000,000 monitoring hours and counting. We’re committed to delivering energy resiliency, reliability, and regulatory compliance — helping you unlock savings and revenue opportunities.
Our customizable solutions can help you lower carbon emissions and support sustainability goals. We’ll work with you to create a microgrid that fits your goals and simplifies emissions reporting as you walk the road toward Sustainability Certification.
R3Di® is a utility-grade, onsite power generation system that delivers conditioned, uninterrupted power to end users. R3Di® relies on a self-contained, turnkey power platform installed without requiring an interconnection agreement or costly public utility upgrades. It’s capable of providing instantaneous full-load pickup in the event of an outage and sustaining power during long-duration blackouts. Relying on safe and sustainable lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery chemistry for energy storage, R3Di® can store and provide up to 1 MW increments of power and includes a natural gas generator for additional support.
With Grove365®, you’ll be empowered to uncover savings — and reduce carbon emissions — with the help of our energy management team. We’ll use historical data and advanced analytics to predict peak demand times. And we work with a large supplier network to secure the most competitive rates and terms based on your company’s needs.
Ready to embark on your journey toward Sustainability Certification and efficient hospital energy management? Schedule a consultation.