Healthcare facilities in the United States account for 4.8% of the total area in the commercial sector and are responsible for 10.3% of total energy consumption in this sector. The number of healthcare facilities increased by 22% since 2003, leading to a 21% rise in energy consumption and an 8% reduction in energy intensity per unit of area (544.8 kWh/m2). This study provides an analytical overview of the end-use energy consumption data in healthcare systems for hospitals in the United States. The energy intensity of the U.S. hospitals ranges from 640.7 kWh/m2 in Zone 5 (very hot) to 781.1 kWh/m2 in Zone 1 (very cold), with an average of 738.5 kWh/m2. This is approximately 2.6 times higher than that of other commercial buildings. High energy intensity in the healthcare facilities, particularly in hospitals, along with energy costs and associated environmental concerns make energy analysis crucial for this type of facility. The proposed analysis shows that U.S. healthcare facilities have higher energy intensity than those of most other countries, especially the European ones. This necessitates the adoption of more energy-efficient approaches to the infrastructure and the management of healthcare facilities in the United States.
This paper begins with the recognition that climate zones influence nonprocess energy use in industrial buildings. Nonprocess energies are heating, cooling, lighting, and ventilation. Nonprocess energy data have been collected from the literature (about 68 buildings) across a wide range of climate zones. The hypothesis tested in this research is: if an industrial building has a characteristic nonprocess energy related to physical dimensions and desired comfort level, then using cooling degrees day (CDD) and heating degrees day (HDD) factors can normalize the measured nonprocess temperature control data for the climate zone differences. That is, do measured nonprocess energy intensities (W=m 2 ), if corrected for climate zone differences, within each building category become more similar and hence reflecting the basic building temperature control energy use? The five U.S. climate zones and the location for each facility in this study were identified. To investigate how the location influences the amount of heating and cooling at each facility, a baseline analysis of five representative cities in each zone was done to obtain the 5-year average CDD and HDD. The reported values of heating and cooling for each facility were then adjusted using this baseline and the climate zones of that facility, so that each facility was then referenced to zone 3; that is, as if all manufacturing facilities were in the same zone 3. The mean, median, standard deviation, and total nonprocess energies for current and zone-adjusted nonprocess energy for each facility in this study were calculated. The mean values of current and adjusted heating and cooling remained close to each other and the standard deviation was not reduced by these adjustments. Thus, the hypothesis of using CDD=HDD to quantitatively account for and hence to adjust for different climate zones appears to not be valid. The absence of improvement (reducing the standard deviation) by normalizing heating and cooling energy using adjustment for climate factors using the concept of CDD=HDD implies that some other correction principles are needed for evaluating fundamental needs for industrial building heating and cooling. The inability to reduce the geographic (that is, climate zone) effects of industrial plant nonprocess energy intensities supports the de-emphasis of this tool in the ASHRAE Handbook.
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