Can hospitals implement energy storage projects

Hospitals use significant amounts of energy for equipment such as lighting in operating rooms, medical devices (e.g. magnetic resonance imaging), air exchange, and filtration (García‐Sanz‐Calcedo 2019). Moreover, they release potentially harmful pollutants, including carbon dioxide and methane (Serghides 2020; Zhang 2022).

There are several effective energy saving strategies at the hospital level, of lesser or greater complexity, which can reduce the amount of energy consumed and carbon emissions and increase energy efficiency.

The following are initiatives that could potentially lower energy consumption. Audit energy consumption. This allows hospitals to set a baseline for energy consumption, which permits an energy benchmark and the defining of indicators that enable regular monitoring of energy consumption (Dadi 2022).

On the other hand, heating, water, and electricity make up around 40% of the carbon footprint of a health system (Pichler 2019), only followed by transport (~22%) and pharmaceuticals (~11%). As such, improving energy management within hospitals has emerged as a priority for health institutions in order to reduce their environmental impact.

There are two principal types of energy needs in hospitals: thermal energy and electricity. Hospitals have substantially higher thermal and electricity requirements than other types of commercial buildings because they work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year.

Hospitals have substantially higher thermal and electricity requirements than other types of commercial buildings because they work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year. Thermal energy is mainly used for heating and air conditioning of rooms, sanitary water production, sterilisation and laundry, and kitchen services.