Done right, going modular can be a good fit for hospitals in search of efficiency. From design to specification to pre-shipment, the process demands engineering attention to the right details at the right times. Get a designer’s notes from experience and learn how to take advantage of what a modular central plant can offer.
Kevin Amyot had serious qualms last spring when contractor Ed Friedrich first proposed a major pump-retrofit project at the Sunset Motor Inn, one of the properties Amyot manages for the H. A. Manosh Corporation in Morrisville, VT. Friedrich’s $13,000 estimate called for the replacement of 18 fixed-speed circulating pumps in the heating system at the Sunset with 10 circulators from the Grundfos Pumps Corporation.
Sometimes, what seems like a need for more cooling capacity could be the need to take a hard look and fine-tune the existing chiller plant. With a hospital expansion coming up, the team on this UMass Memorial Health Care project avoided adding up to 120 tons of capacity with tactics that included attacking inefficiencies in piping, valves, cooling towers, and controls.
Follow the engineer at a large hospital complex in Phoenix as he pursues less disruptive and less expensive ways to boost BAS performance and budget wellness, all in the name of patient comfort.
With a wide spectrum of specialized spaces and particular outside air requirements, a hospital’s en-ergy-efficiency efforts start when arranging which areas go where. From there, the author leaves no technology unturned — chilled beams, geothermal, DOAS, VRF, etc. — in evaluating which ap-proaches might best contribute proper ventilation and humidity in which environments, with an eye on minimizing facility energy consumption.
New York City is certainly renowned for the quantity and variety of tall buildings towering over the Manhattan skyline. Many of these structures are at a point where age has taken its toll on mechanical systems and now require replacement. Even if they are still operational, today’s new A/C systems are more energy efficient, making it cost effective for changeout.
Commercial buildings will soon be able to connect to the “Smart Grid” with ease thanks to a new strategic relationship between industry alliances LonMark® International and OpenADR, say the organizations. LonMark and the OpenADR Alliance, a nonprofit corporation created to foster the development, adoption and compliance of a Smart Grid standard known as Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR), are working together to enable interoperability between certified products that will better enable commercial buildings to manage their energy uses on the Smart Grid.
Since data centers are atypical in several aspects, unique BMS approaches are required to optimize their control, monitoring, and operation. Learn why it is important to know the detailed pros and cons between commercial and industrial automation system hardware, software, and instrumentation as you consider the facility’s automation design and associated costs.
Achieving deep energy savings is especially challenging when you’re faced with an existing structure with poor orientation, historic preservation requirements, and little space for renewables. The Byron Rogers Federal Office Building’s retrofit is scheduled to be completed in 2013; the post-renovation building is projected to consume less than half the energy it did before.
A lot will happen under the single rooftop of the new Wesley Long Cancer Center in Greensboro, NC. The 33,000-sq-ft addition to the Moses Cone Regional Cancer Center includes a business office, lobby/waiting area, admitting, phlebotomy lab, breast cancer treatment, exam areas, chemotherapy, an auditorium, and education classrooms.
RSS
