NREL helps cut building energy use in halfJuly 17th, 2012 in
Technology / Energy & Green Tech The Great River Medical Center
in Burlington, Iowa, has energy consumption even lower than the
50% savings promoted in the Advanced Energy Design Guide for
Large Hospitals. The lake plays an important role in the
hospital's energy savings. Credit: KJWW Engineering Consultants
The blips of a heart monitor, the hum of an MRI, the intense
lights of a surgical room: all can bring both comfort and fear
and all require a lot of power. But new hospitals are being
filled with natural, calming light and are leveraging energy
from the sun and earth to power the machines, instruments, and
tools medical professionals use to help patients recover.
Hospitals use a lot of energy to save lives. In fact, they use
more than 836 trillion BTUs of energy every year and produce
more than 2.5 times the carbon dioxide emissions of commercial
office buildings. The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE)
Commercial Buildings Program and DOE's Natio