Last summer the UK truly felt the effects of climate change. While global warming has already caused extreme weather events around the world, some perhaps thought that the UK’s milder climate would mean we would be shielded from the effects. Our cooler weather and status as a developed economy does mean we are somewhat less affected, but recent 40 °C temperatures have shown we do have many infrastructure challenges ahead of us, particularly in our built environment
Frequent heatwaves will make building comfort harder to maintain. We also need to be careful not to exacerbate the root cause while doing so, by ensuring that carbon emissions are limited at the same time. For hospitals there is a fundamental need to ensure comfortable temperatures for patients and optimum working conditions for doctors and nurses. At the same time, how do you address opposing challenges of decarbonising for the future, and providing comfort for today, for a building as complex and energy-intensive as a hospital?
The fundamental shift in design
Let us be clear, even if we meet climate goals, it’s still likely we’ll face extreme weather events. With the risk of the mercury hitting 40 °C every summer, we need to be conscious of this when designing new hospitals and refurbishing existing assets. We need to take learnings from countries around the world where battling this heat is a common occurrence, while also being mindful of the fact that we also have harsher winters than many hotter climates.
A lot of the energy used in buildings comes from either heating or cooling. Using the natural environment more effectively in designing schemes could help hospitals to mitigate against heat. For instance, in hotter climates, buildings tend to be developed using natural cooling through shade, while building with thicker walls, and plenty of windows that are designed to create through-drafts, is common around the world. There is a lot we can learn from here
This could also have dramatic impacts on the costs of running heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems through summer. Considering that 80% of the building lifecycle costs occur in the operational phase of buildings, there is an opportunity to gain cost efficiencies here.
Role of ‘smart buildings’
Equally, ‘smart buildings’ have a serious role to play – and when we say ‘smart buildings’, we can’t just mean delivering new-build developments. Refurbishment of heritage assets should also consider the Internet of Things and the use of data to bring them up to par
This technology can provide usage data on the flow of people through a building, where they congregate, and how they use it. Data like this provides invaluable insights in optimising other technologies like heating and ventilation systems – for instance optimising their operation to provide maximum patient comfort at optimal cost by avoiding unnecessary cooling or heating
Digital infrastructure and the hospital of the future
Connected buildings can help optimise where energy is drawn from with the need to cool or heat up buildings. For instance, the amount of energy that HVAC systems are using is less of a concern if all of that energy is being generated by onsite renewables like solar panels. Understanding where your power is coming from, and modelling cooling of the building against how much green energy will be available throughout the day, can help bridge this gap between sustainability and comfort.
Unfortunately, it has been quite common for sensors and IoT-enabled infrastructure to be removed from projects to reduce costs. However, in the years to come I expect there will be an uptick of technology in property development as the effects of climate change become more and more apparent. For hospitals, this could mean automated switching between on-site renewables and the grid, to better address energy demand throughout the day – helping to ensure that any renewables investment is contributing to both decarbonisation and reduced operational costs
I expect I’m preaching to the converted when it comes to buildings and sustainability, but in case any readers simply turned up air-conditioning without consideration last summer, it’s worth noting that the built environment is still a huge contributor to carbon emissions, with 40% of global energy emissions coming from buildings.
Significant energy efficiency challenges
Outside of hospitals, as towns and cities evolve with hybrid working, we risk huge sustainability challenges if 50% of the staff who would ‘traditionally’ be in an office are working from home with the heating or fans on all day, while the other 50% do the same in the office. It causes situations where at-home workers and in-office workers combined are creating significant energy efficiency challenges. This means buildings like hospitals may have to do better than ever if we are to reach acceptable national levels of climate controls.
Digital infrastructure
Looking to the latest technologies, and digital infrastructure is one route to achieving this. In digitalisation terms, infrastructure is lagging behind other sectors. From our global research we know that 63% of infrastructure stakeholders believe the digitalisation of buildings and power networks is falling behind that of digital progress in other industries. We need digital buildings and grids to be able to achieve Net Zero and address things like building comfort.
Overcoming barriers to digital infrastructure
One barrier to adoption has been investment in technology being perceived as prohibitively expensive, particularly when you factor in worries that any technology installed could be obsolete before its payback period. It has created a need for an as-a-service type approach commonplace in the IT world, and bringing it into the ‘OT’, or operational technology, world.
Anything-as-a-Service or XaaS models give hospitals better access than ever before to transformational digital technologies, enabling them to shift significant upfront investments into operational costs. It removes the need to ask yourself whether it’s better to invest now to reduce costs in the long term, at a time when major investments can be off-putting given wider economic challenges. Equally, as well as avoiding upfront asset costs, it also removes obsolescence worries, and provides flexibility to choose from a virtually limitless, constantly updating, library of technologies to improve and digitise buildings.
A potential ‘game-changer’
Applying these ‘as a service’ subscription models to buildings and grids is a gamechanger in accelerating the digitalisation of infrastructure. In simple transactional terms, we’re exchanging capital expense for operational expense, which also means budget can be based on a range of outcomes based on usage, value, and defined results. Lowering the upfront cost of technology deployment in this way gives hospitals far greater access to digital tools, which eventually translates into shorter innovation cycles, lower financial risk, and clearly defined payback.
To provide some real examples, Energy as a Service (EaaS) users would be able to forgo capital investment in energy infrastructure, and pay instead for energy based on usage and performance. This would mean removing physical energy assets off their balance sheets, and focusing their attention and investment on core business activities.
This could allow hospitals to combine different energy systems more easily, switching between alternative sources to help decarbonise and/or reduce energy costs.
Reliability as a Service
Reliability as a Service is another area. By using data analytics on assets like heat pumps, boilers, fans, and chillers, we can optimise their energy use, predict when they might fail and intervene with maintenance, reduce unnecessary intervention, and, ultimately, extend their lifecycle. In the context of critical infrastructure like a hospital, the ability to use digital tools to engineer better energy efficiency and measurable cost reduction, as well as to establish resiliency, is impossible to ignore.
Breaking down silos
A further benefit to digitalising infrastructure is that the data can be even more powerful when different departments can share insights. So, replacing numerous different platforms, and thus making data accessible to all stakeholders, could connect the dots between energy consumption, emission data, water use, and footfall through the hospital, and help pick through trends and generate insights.
We recently launched Building X, which is designed to do exactly this. It uses AI-based analytics and forecasts, and customised notifications alert the user to take action to prevent budget overruns. A commitment to sustainability goals and transparency go hand in hand: automated reporting and filters for compiling ad-hoc reports keep your reporting quick and straightforward. Scalable and modular, our open platform offers a suite of AIenabled applications and vendor-agnostic connectivity. It helps hospitals connect real estate assets, and bring them into the cloud to form a silo-free environment to accelerate the sustainability and performance of smart and networked properties, and enhance the experience of the people in them. Using data in this way could allow for hospitals to be planned more effectively, connect IT systems with operational systems, and provide meaningful insights for other departments like HR and Finance on how buildings are used.
Helping hospitals achieve pre-defined goals
Building X is underpinned by our Xcelerator platform, which has been created following demand from customers looking for digital platforms that could bring together a tech portfolio, a partner ecosystem, and a marketplace, along with an open, AI-enabled suite. Systems like this will allow hospitals to start to create and adopt customised XaaS models to achieve pre-defined goals
Across the industries we work with we know that decarbonisation is considered a central challenge. Increasingly, digitalisation and decarbonisation go hand in hand – whether it’s at a factory, in a university, or in a hospital. The digital tools and resources to make better decisions are out there, and many are in use across UK hospitals. While previously, many of these systems have offered single solutions and acted as fragmented islands, the real gains will be made in connecting systems to ensure a single vision of the truth for buildings.
To do this in new-build or existing assets, our UK built environment will need to be more connected and data-led. It needs to happen if we’re to achieve carbon neutrality, and mitigate against the hotter summers and colder winters we’re experiencing. But it also provides insights beyond too. How can we make hospitals better environments for patients and staff? How can building projects create social good in communities? How can we invest in community renewables projects that can provide industrial-scale benefits, jobs, and energy security? The answers to all these questions can be gleaned from data too.
To do this in new-build or existing assets, our UK built environment will need to be more connected and data-led. It needs to happen if we’re to achieve carbon neutrality, and mitigate against the hotter summers and colder winters we’re experiencing. But it also provides insights beyond too. How can we make hospitals better environments for patients and staff? How can building projects create social good in communities? How can we invest in community renewables projects that can provide industrial-scale benefits, jobs, and energy security? The answers to all these questions can be gleaned from data too.
Technology that can securely monitor, control, and optimise assets should be at the heart of all healthcare estates being planned or refurbished today
Ian Ellis
Ian Ellis is the Marketing and Sales Specialist manager for Siemens Building Products in the UK & Ireland. He has been involved in the BMS and controls industry for over 35 years. He is passionate about delivering smart buildings for clients, and helping them meet their energy efficiency and sustainability goals.