PG&E rewards hospital for energy-saving retrofit
Pacific Gas and Electric Company awarded a $15,632 rebate to Fresno Heart & Surgical Hospital for a project that is expected to significantly reduce the 57-bed hospital’s energy usage and could save the hospital nearly $45,000 annually on its energy bills.
Timothy Lockwood, mechanical engineer and senior project manager at PG&E, said this is just one in a long line of green projects initiated by Community Medical Centers’ facilities. “We meet regularly with facilities people,” he said. “Community always has a project on our books…We’re expecting to award more energy-saving rebates when the new ambulatory care center opens” on the Community Regional Medical Center campus.
“It is one piece of our corporate-wide approach to becoming a sustainable corporation and being socially responsible toward our environment,” said Mark Mathieson, Community’s senior vice president of facilities management. “Our new construction projects have a smaller carbon footprint, are made of recycled materials, manufactured from plants and carried on trucks that are more energy efficient. We’re also promoting bike riding and car/van-pooling, we recycle our waste, and use paper products from recycled materials.”
Brian Steinhauer, Fresno Heart & Surgical’s plant service manager, enhanced energy efficiency by installing a variable frequency drive on the buildings heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) system. By slowing down the motors that operate the HVAC system, the retrofit decreases energy usage, but without reducing the pressure needed to maintain air flow and temperatures.
“This is a very big deal,” said Lockwood as he presented the rebate check on Nov. 10 to Steinhauer. “This absolutely reduces the hospital’s carbon footprint and saves on carbon dioxide emissions.”
Steinhauer said he’s also working on smaller projects to reduce energy usage, such as installing motion-detector lights in housekeeping closets and looking at pump controls in the central energy plant. It’s estimated the changes could add up to more than $3,500 a month when completed. Steinhauer said with the PG&E rebate and energy savings, he expects the retrofit project to pay for itself within 110 days.
This story was reported by Erin Kennedy. She can be reached at ekennedy@communitymedical.org.