[ARTICLE] Creating a Healthier Hospital through Retro-Commissioning

by Todd McGuire, Regional Manager for Commissioning/Facility Optimization

photography courtesy of Asante

As part of a company-wide sustainability initiative, Asante Health System’s project team at the three-story, 196,000 sf Three Rivers Community Hospital are working to make energy-saving and operational improvements to the hospital. Initiatives at this Grants Pass, OR hospital include maximizing energy efficiency, increasing patient and staff comfort, addressing building pressurization issues and reducing operating costs in the ten-year-old facility. Glumac is working with facility staff to implement a number of improvements that were identified and prioritized during the hospital's recent audit/retro-commissioning (RCx) process.

Glumac has provided a comprehensive audit and retro-commissioning report for HVAC, electrical, and plumbing systems at Three Rivers. Our services leverage the Owner’s in-house capabilities and staff availability to keep scopes consistent and cost-effective. Our report has helped define a range of savings and improvement options by way of utility bill analysis, site walks and investigation of the building automation system.

Through in-depth staff interviews and field investigations, our team discovered several ways in which the hospital could reduce energy consumption without making major changes to the systems' infrastructure. Working closely with facility staff and Asante management, we developed significant, cost-effective enhancements to provide improvements while meeting code requirements, achieving rebate incentives from the electric utility and incorporating Asante’s financial priorities. This process began in 2010, and completion of the current scope of work is scheduled for Spring 2013.

The following measures are being structured and coordinated with ongoing campus expansion and modernization projects, so as to best integrate with master and capital planning and resource allocation:

• Confirmation of duct static pressure controls and installation of isolation dampers on elevator shaft vents. This serves to eliminate the stack effect in elevator shafts and the resultant continuous loss of conditioned air and pressurization control.
• Correction of damper actuator applications at air handling unit (AHU) outdoor air louvers to improve ventilation control.
• Calibration and consolidation of outside air temperature sensors to optimize load sensing and central equipment lock-out strategies.
• Replacement of all failed fire-smoke damper actuators that hinder adequate air flow and contribute to control problems.
• Recalculation of airflows for all spaces within the building. This was done to reduce air changes per hour to levels that meet code while also reducing fan energy at the central air handling units, and also to address usage modifications at various zones.
• Testing and balancing, including measuring flows at all VAV boxes and adjusting terminal units in a space-by-space engineering study of each zone based on usage.
• Implementation of several low-cost programming changes at the central control terminal, including:
  • Loop-tuning chilled water valves for better control of supply air temperature.
  • Resetting supply duct static pressure based on multiple VAV box demand.
  • Resetting supply air temperature based on outside air temperature.
  • Revision to the airside economizer sequence.

Some of the lessons learned from our work providing facility optimization services to Asante as well as other clients include:

• Facility needs for code compliance and operational improvements are often more important than the desire for energy savings.
• The ability to combine energy modeling, design assessment and commissioning services under a single umbrella are of particular value to many clients.
• Traditional energy service company (ESCO) approaches to facility audit and retro-commissioning are often not geared to client strengths and are subsequently off target or over-priced. Our facility optimization services approach allows our clients to select various delivery methods for each measure (such as a simple design/build narrative for competitive pricing, to full design and construction management) as appropriate. This reduces labor cost and the need for outside financing, while incorporating risk mitigation measures that bring additional cost-avoidance benefits and value to the project.

We look forward to completing our retro-commissioning activities next spring. We will continue to work with Asante to make sure our implemented measures are resulting in the predicted improvements in operations and energy savings. We are excited to be making Three Rivers Community Hospital a more healthful place for patients and staff.