Feasibility Study on Energy Audit and Data Driven Analysis Procedure for Building Energy Efficiency: Bench-Marking in Korean Hospital Buildings

Dong Kon Hwang, Jinkyun Cho and Junghwan Moon
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Dong Kon Hwang: Department of Mechanical & Information Engineering, University of Seoul, Seoul 02504, Korea
Jinkyun Cho: Department of Building and Plant Engineering, Hanbat National University, Daejeon 34158, Korea
Junghwan Moon: Department of Building System Technology, Daelim University College, Anyang 13916, Korea

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 15, 1-18

Abstract: Growths in population, increasing demand for health care services and comfort levels, together with patients on the rise in time spent inside hospitals, assure the upward trend that energy demand will continue in the future. Since the hospital buildings operate 24 hours, 365 days a year for the treatment and restoration of patients, they are approximately 2–3 times more energy-intensive than normal buildings. For this reason, energy efficiency in hospitals is one of the prime objectives for energy policy at regional, national and international levels. This study aims to find how meaningful energy performance, reflecting good energy management and energy conservation measures (ECMs), can be operated for hospital buildings, a category encompassing complex buildings with different systems and large gaps between them. Energy audit allows us to obtain knowledge from the healthcare facility, in order to define and tune data driven analysis rules. The use of benchmarking in the energy audit of healthcare facilities enables immediate comparison between hospitals. Data driven energy analysis also allows ascertaining their expected energy consumption and estimating the possible savings margin by using the building energy flow chart. In the 2015–2017 periods, bench-marking of four public hospitals in Seoul were audited for the energy consumption related to weather conditions, total area, bed numbers, employee numbers, and analyzed for building energy flow by zones, energy sources, systems and equipment. This is a practice-based learning in a hospital project. The results reveal that the average annual energy consumption of a hospital under normal conditions, and energy efficiency factors are divided into energy baselines, energy consumption goals for energy saving and energy usage trends for setting ECMs, respectively. The indicator dependent on the area of inpatients (number of beds) proved to be the most suitable as a reference to quantify the energy consumption of a hospital.

Keywords: hospital facility; ECMs: Energy conservation measures; energy audit; energy analysis; building energy flow chart (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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