The most of the Italian hospitals show a significant rise of their electricity demand during the summer. Such a growth represents a high penalizing aspect especially in structures characterized by considerable needs, being the contracts with the companies providing electricity normally set to the peak of consumption. An energy policy that would seek a requirement optimization through a cut of the summer peak of the electricity demand could therefore result in both energetic and economical savings. In this paper the electricity needs of twenty-three hospitals located in Emilia-Romagna, north Italy, are investigated. These electricity requirements have been broken down into main end-uses confirming that compression chillers, supporting the HVAC systems during the hot season, represent the major electricity end-use and are essentially to be considered as the responsible for the summer peak in electricity demand. Finally it has been detected the existence of a correlation between electricity requirements and cooling needs. Finally, a brief survey has been carried out to establish which technologies would best fit with the hospitals’ needs in sought of a rationalization of the energy demand. Among the different scenarios, solar technologies (e.g. solar collectors) in particular well suit with hospital facilities since these systems achieve their peak of production in correspondence of the peak of demand during the hottest sunny days of the summer.
On energy requirements and potential energy savings in Italian hospital buildings
BIZZARRI, Giacomo
2006
Abstract
The most of the Italian hospitals show a significant rise of their electricity demand during the summer. Such a growth represents a high penalizing aspect especially in structures characterized by considerable needs, being the contracts with the companies providing electricity normally set to the peak of consumption. An energy policy that would seek a requirement optimization through a cut of the summer peak of the electricity demand could therefore result in both energetic and economical savings. In this paper the electricity needs of twenty-three hospitals located in Emilia-Romagna, north Italy, are investigated. These electricity requirements have been broken down into main end-uses confirming that compression chillers, supporting the HVAC systems during the hot season, represent the major electricity end-use and are essentially to be considered as the responsible for the summer peak in electricity demand. Finally it has been detected the existence of a correlation between electricity requirements and cooling needs. Finally, a brief survey has been carried out to establish which technologies would best fit with the hospitals’ needs in sought of a rationalization of the energy demand. Among the different scenarios, solar technologies (e.g. solar collectors) in particular well suit with hospital facilities since these systems achieve their peak of production in correspondence of the peak of demand during the hottest sunny days of the summer.I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
