Bradford hospitals save £26,000 on air handling energy 22 November 2011

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is reporting over £26,000 in annual energy savings since installing variable-speed drives from ABB across its sites at Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke's Hospital.

ABB's standard drives for HVAC have been installed in areas such as operating theatres and infection control zones, where air flow is controlled.

Trainee estates manager Anton Fothergill explains that the load on these air handling units varies with outside temperature, but the biggest difference is between day and night, when fans typically run at half speed to conserve energy, reduce noise and minimise wear.

The new drives are rated from 0.75kW to 30kW, and together are expected to save more than 200,000kWh and 110 tonnes of CO2 per year. They were supplied and commissioned by ABB Drives Alliance member, Halcyon Drives.

"In critical areas we follow the established guidelines and run two of each critical system in duty and standby mode, which made it easier to co-ordinate the project," states Fothergill – noting that hospital operations could not be disrupted.

"Halcyon Drives has a great deal of experience in this type of project and co-ordinated installation to ensure minimum disruption," he adds.

Halcyon specialists installed, set up and commissioned all the drives, each being connected into the building management system (BMS), arranged by the onsite BMS systems company, with communication via BACnet.

Brian Tinham

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