Measure before you cut: a hospital energy baseline
Why most savings claims fail, and the minimum data set that makes them provable.
A hospital that cannot show what it used last year cannot show what it saved this year. Before any retrofit, build a baseline you would defend to an auditor.
The minimum data set
- Twelve months of utility data by meter, with the billing dates.
- Weather data for the same period, so heating and cooling loads can be normalised.
- Activity data: floor area, occupied beds, theatre hours.
- Sub-meters on chillers, major air handlers, medical gas compressors and theatres.
Why it fails without them
Hospitals run continuously and their loads shift with case mix, season and new equipment. A saving measured against a year that was unusually hot, or before a new wing opened, is not a saving. Normalising to weather and activity is what separates the two.
What to do next
- Fix the boundary and publish it internally.
- Report one energy KPI and one carbon KPI each month.
- Commission an ASHRAE Level 2 audit to rank measures by cost and payback.
The measurement playbook lists the steps in order.