The NHS is entering a transformative decade. Recently, the government announced its 10 Year Plan for the NHS, built upon three pillars of transformation: transitioning from analogue to digital, shifting care from hospitals to communities, and moving from sickness to prevention. In a separate announcement, the NHS was named a recipient of the inaugural Great British Energy investment, which will fund rooftop solar panels for 200 hospitals. Craig Anderson, Decarbonisation consultant at WSP, argues that these developments signal a clear recognition of the urgent need to transform NHS estates, particularly in terms of energy consumption and carbon emissions.
This transformation is no small feat. It demands long-term thinking, strategic planning, and a willingness to learn from sectors that have already made significant strides in energy efficiency and the planning of decarbonisation. One such sector is heavy industry, where energy-intensive operations have driven innovation in sustainability for decades. There are lessons health estates can learn from industry.
Industrial organisations typically approach energy infrastructure with a whole-life cost mindset, grounded in operational realities such as resilience, cost, and security. The thought process for development focuses on critical success factors that relate to outputs from the end result, and not necessarily linked to budget or political cycles. In contrast, NHS briefs often prioritise full electrification, universal EV charging, and digitisation, ambitious goals that may not align with existing infrastructure.
In one hospital project, electrification and EV charging targets required 30MVA of electrical supply, but with only 7MVA of contracted supply, and the availability of a further 9MVA coming online in a realistic timeframe. Through early engineering intervention and reassessment of the brief the requirement was reduced to 14.5MW, enabling phased delivery which could be delivered in line with the build out programme.
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