The new Energy Centre at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital reduced the Trust’s overall spending on energy bills by over £230,000 in its first full month in operation compared with the same month the previous year.
The savings were revealed as Oxford East MP, Anneliese Dodds, officially opened the Centre (on 10 November) to mark the culmination of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s £14.8 million Hospital Energy Project. The Trust’s data on energy usage/spend at the John Radcliffe and Churchill Hospitals (excluding the PFI estates) for October 2017 revealed an estate fuel bill of £252,832.27, down by £231,343.03 on the bill for October 2016, representing a saving of £7,462 a day in the first month’s full service of the new CHP system.
Dr Bruno Holthof, the Trust’s CEO, said: “Today marks the culmination of two and a half years’ work on site to remove our 30-year old boilers at the John Radcliffe and Churchill Hospitals and replace them with new infrastructure. It is exceptionally good news that we are already seeing significant savings on our energy bills.”
The project saw the two hospital’s old boilers removed and replaced with a CHP engine, new combi boilers, the creation of an ‘Energy Link’ between the two hospitals, installation of new heat stations and updated/upgraded building management systems, and the replacement of 7,000 light fittings. The new energy and heating infrastructure will cut the Trust’s CO2 output by 10,000 tonnes annually. Vital Energi is the Trust’s commercial partner on the project.
Claire Hennessy, the Trust’s head of Operational Estates and Facilities Management, said: “This is a new era of sustainable energy provision for the Trust. For the first time in decades, we are going into the winter with reliable heat and power, while cutting our CO2 emissions and saving on our energy bills and backlog maintenance.”
