A Look at Health Care Buildings
Are they on multibuilding complexes?
How do they use energy and how much does it cost?
What types of equipment do they use?
What types of equipment do they use?
Heating and Cooling Equipment
Reference 2: Heating and Cooling Equipment Definitions
Health care buildings as a whole are quite varied in their use of heating and cooling equipments; no one heating or cooling equipment type dominates. However, in inpatient health care buildings, boilers are the most widely used heating equipment and district chilled water and central chillers are the most common cooling equipment.
Table 7: Number and percent of health care buildings (all and inpatient) by heating, cooling, and lighting equipment types
Lighting Types
Most (94 percent) health care buildings use standard fluorescent lights. Over three-fourths also use incandescent bulbs and about one-fourth also use compact fluorescent.
Reference 3: Lighting Type Definitions
Related link: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Lighting Systems Research Group
Commercial Refrigeration Equipment
Commercial refrigeration equipment is found in 14 percent of all health care buildings and in 35 percent of inpatient health care (the number for outpatient is not statistically significant). For all health care, 13 percent have refrigerated cases or cabinets and 6 percent have walk-in refrigeration units; for inpatient health care, 31 percent have cases or cabinets and 29 percent have walk-in units.
Computers
There are approximately 2.5 million computers used in health care buildings. This is an average of 1,092 computers per million square feet, or 569 computers per thousand employees.
This information is from the CBECS special topic report: "Personal Computers and Computer Terminals in Commercial Buildings"
Energy-Related Space Functions
Seventeen percent of all health care buildings and 35 percent of inpatient health care buildings are reported to use space in the building for commercial food preparation, such as kitchens, steam tables, or warming areas.
Four percent of all health care and 15 percent of inpatient health care buildings are reported to use space for activities requiring large amounts of hot water, such as a commercial laundry room or heated pool.
Continue: How do they measure up on conservation efforts?
Go to "What types of equipment do they use?" for other building types:
- Office
- Education
- Health Care
- Retail and Service
- Food Service
Specific questions may be directed to:
Joelle Davis Michaels
joelle.michaels@eia.doe.gov
CBECS Manager
URL: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/consumptionbriefs/cbecs/pbawebsite/health/health_whatequip.htm
Release
date: September 11, 2000
File
last modified: January 3, 2001