Analysis on Energy Efficiency in Healthcare Buildings

The aim of this paper is to analyze and quantify the average healthcare centres' energy behavior and estimate the possibilities of savings through the use of concrete measures to reduce their energy demand in Extremadura, Spain. It provides the average energy consumption of 55 healthcare centres sized between 500 and 3,500 m(2). The analysis evaluated data of electricity and fossil fuel energy consumption as well as water use and other energy-consuming devices. The energy solutions proposed to improve the efficiency are quantified and listed. The average annual energy consumption of a healthcare centre is 86.01 kWh/m(2), with a standard deviation of 16.8 kWh/m(2). The results show that an annual savings of (sic)4.77/m(2) is possible. The potential to reduce the energy consumption of a healthcare centre of size 1,000 m(2) is 10,801 kWh by making an average investment of (sic)11,601, thus saving (sic)2,961/year with an average payback of 3.92 years.