Innovation, GRU partnership power significant energy savings for Shands
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (April 19, 2011)—Fueled by a unique community partnership and a smartphone-savvy mechanical system, the Shands Cancer Hospital at the University of Florida is generating enough energy savings to supply a suburb.
In November 2009, we opened the Shands Cancer Hospital and its South Energy Center, an onsite power plant in partnership with Gainesville Regional Utilities. The state-of-the-art facility promised increased energy efficiency compared with conventional generation plants and projected a potential annual energy savings equal to the power needed to run more than 2,000 homes. Shands at UF Facilities teams recently learned just how well the South Energy Center has lived up to its potential. According to GRU’s most recent measurement, the hospital saved enough energy to power an additional 280 homes from November 2010 to February 2011.
“Our partnership with GRU has resulted in very creative, forward-thinking solutions to energy challenges,” said Brad Pollitt, Shands HealthCare Facilities vice president. “We wanted to design a highly efficient building and do whatever we could do to minimize our environmental impact, and together, we capitalized on our efforts.”
This South Energy Center is one of a few combined heat and power plants in the Southeast capable of providing 100 percent of a hospital’s heating, cooling and medical gas needs. It reduces energy consumption in part by capturing the hot exhaust from a turbine and using it to produce steam that is then used to run the hospital’s heating and cooling systems.
In addition, Shands at UF Facilities teams use a fully automated hospital air conditioning system, which they can adjust remotely by logging into an online control center. So they can monitor and modify energy consumption to maximize efficiency from their smartphones.
For example, the system is preset to automatically bring in outside air to cool the building when it’s more efficient to do so. And if a unit is not meeting specifications or properly calibrating, the system can be programmed to alert mechanics via e-mail or text message.
“We are proud to collaborate with Shands HealthCare on this unique project,” said Chuck Heidt, GRU South Energy Center asset manager. “By working together, we have been able to use cutting-edge technology to dramatically improve energy efficiency and reliability, while reducing the environmental footprint of the cancer hospital. This achievement was instrumental in making it the first the LEED-Gold-Certified hospital in the Southeast.”
An expansion of the Shands at UF academic medical center in Gainesville, the 500,000-square-foot Shands Cancer Hospital opened Nov. 1, 2009, to provide cancer and other acute-care services for patients from throughout the region. Flad Architects designed and general contractor Skanska built the new facility, which also houses Shands Critical Care Center, a Level 1 Trauma Center and emergency room. The South Energy Center was designed and built by Burns and McDonnell under contract with GRU. Shands’ partnership with GRU helped the Shands Cancer Hospital achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council last summer.
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