Healthcare is one of the 16 sectors of critical infrastructure as defined by the Department
of Homeland Security. Hospitals are critical. Every hospital contains hundreds, if not thousands,
of life saving machines. All of which require electricity to function. So what does it take
to power a hospital?
The 2003 Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) showed that large hospitals,
or hospitals that are more than 200,000 square feet, accounted for less than 1 percent of
all commercial buildings and 2 percent of commercial floor-space. However, these hospitals
used 4.3 percent of the total delivered energy used by the commercial sector in 2003.
Each large hospital consumes over 18 million kilowatt hours of energy every year, which
costs hospitals nationwide a total of over 6 billion dollars.
Hospitals are open 24 hours a day and thousands of employees, patients, and visitors occupy
the buildings daily. Sophisticated HVAC systems control the internal climate, including temperature,
humidity, and air flow. In addition, many energy intensive activities occur in these
buildings like laundry, medical and lab equipment use, sterilization, computer and server use,
food service, and refrigeration. As a result, hospitals are susceptible to “voltage sags.”
Voltage sags are instantaneous grid outages that can occur even under standard load.
In order for hospitals to provide life-saving services, they need reliable power. In order
for hospital power to remain reliable, they need mission critical operators.