Confidential Pennsylvania Hospital System, Energy Spending Analysis and Cogeneration Operations Review
Cogeneration plants at two Pennsylvania-based hospital campuses produced space heating and domestic hot water, while generating electricity to offset a significant portion of hospital demand.
Since installing the 4.5-MW and 1.1-MW plants, energy costs continued to fall, leading to opportunistic restructuring of electricity contracts. In doing so, however, the CHP systems became uneconomical. Burns was hired to review operating sequences, maintenance agreements and profitability projections over the systems’ 20-year lifespans.
The assessment identified more than $457,000 in annual savings by utilizing the CHP system intermittently during hours of peak summer pricing, operating as part of a power-curtailment program or as resilient stand-by generators.
Additionally, Burns reviewed the thermal controls for the steam generator’s heat recovery system, recommending improvements to extract more power during summer-time operations.
Similar projects include the Clarkson Avenue Medical Complex 18 MW microgrid and Bellevue Hospital 4 MW cogeneration system design.
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