Overview

Sutter Health operates a system of 26 acute care hospitals and more than 400 clinics in Northern and Central California.

Sutter has implemented a retro-commissioning (RCx) program to identify deficiencies in its facilities and implement energy conservation measures to improve the environment of care and overall operations.

Our Approach

The RCx program includes assessment and implementation of measures, training, tracking energy savings, and quantifying energy and environmental benefits. The program aims to address operational needs in the hospital portfolio, ensure compliance with licensing requirements, train facility staff, and achieve Sutter Health's environmental stewardship goals for energy and carbon reduction.

Sutter Health recognizes that modern buildings are highly sophisticated, and facilities teams are under severe pressure to address daily operational and maintenance needs. The program's energy goal is to reduce the portfolio EUI for acute care facilities to under 200 kBtu/sq-ft/yr by 2030. To achieve this goal, the program will complete assessments at five facilities per year.

Result

Southland, in partnership with Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), has completed the assessment and two phases of implementation work for the Mills Peninsula Medical Center (MPMC). MPMC is a 600,000-square-foot acute care hospital in Burlingame, California commissioned in 2011.

The work implemented at MPMC improved the facility's lighting systems, chilled water and hot water systems, air systems, and recommissioned the hospital's electric power metering system. The improvements restored full automatic operation to the impacted systems and repaired failed exhaust air controllers which were creating pressure issues in the hospital. The work also included the installation of analytics software, making it easier for facility engineers to maintain systems going forward.

This project was funded by Sutter Health and PG&E's on-bill financing program. The $6.1 million project has created $1.2 million per year in annual energy cost savings. The hospital energy utilization intensity (EUI) was reduced from 299 to 220 a 25% reduction. Most importantly, the hospital operates better, controls humidity better, and is easier to maintain.