Feb 4 2010
Three hospitals in U.S. have signed contracts that will help them to save more than $1.7 million in energy costs and provide them clean energy of up to 10%. The clean energy provided for the hospitals will prevent 11,829 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions from being released to the environment. The emission prevented is equal to removing 2,052 cars from the roads. Clean Energy Solutions program was established by Practice Greenhealth to enable the health sector in the U.S to change to renewable energy sources and the first participants in this program are these three hospitals.
About 16% of the U.S. economy is comprised by the health sector and about $6.5 billion each year is spent on energy by this sector. The energy consumed by the sector is generated by burning fossil fuels, which is linked with various chronic illnesses such as heart and lung disease and asthma. Practice Greenhealth, through its Clean Energy Solutions program, helps hospitals by providing training, tools and guidance to reduce their energy consumption. It also helps them to install renewable energy systems and for buying clean energy. Practice Greenhealth was started two years back and has more than 1,000 health systems and hospitals as its members in the country.
Nick DeDominicis, Vice President of Clean Energy Solutions at Practice Greenhealth, said that energy is a vital area with regard to climate change and hospitals’ are ranked second for energy intensive buildings. DeDominicis added that by adopting clean energy strategy, hospital can not only save costs but public health is also benefited due to reduction in greenhouse gases.
Energy Impact Calculator from Practice Greenhealth helps the hospitals to calculate exactly how much the public health is affected due to the energy consumed by them by burning fossil fuels. Healthcare Clean Energy Exchange (HCEE) was developed by Practice Greenhealth to help hospitals purchase clean energy through an auction program that gives them access to competitive energy suppliers. Through competitive bidding, the hospitals are able to buy up to 10 percent of clean energy.
Source: http://www.practicegreenhealth.org