Veolia awarded £27 million contract to cut carbon and energy costs for NHS
Global resource management company Veolia, working through its specialist energy team, has been awarded a £27m energy management contract to upgrade the 459-bed Eastbourne District General Hospital, part of East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust. The contract, which extends to 2040, includes a multi-million pound construction project during 2023 that will deliver wide ranging energy upgrades and target carbon savings of 4,129 tonnes per year.
Delivered through Veolia’s Building a Zero Carbon Future programme,
with funding provided through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme for
affordable, low carbon energy efficiency upgrades across the public sector, the
scheme is one of the first to to take a whole building approach. This utilises
a holistic approach that accounts for how facilities and the energy delivery
systems interact with each other, while maintaining an indoor environment that
enhances patient care.
A secure energy supply is essential to maintain a modern patient care environment for the hospital which has 457 beds and treats more than 470,000 patients per year. To meet this energy demand and achieve carbon and energy cost savings Veolia will manage projects covering the design, delivery, and installation of a range of energy upgrades. These will guarantee the hospital meets the NHS carbon reduction targets for 2030 and is supported by a 24/7 operations and maintenance contract.
The energy plant upgrades include desteaming the site, solar arrays giving a total of 1.1MWp renewable electricity, improved ventilation systems, and a dual stage heat pump system to supply 3.2 MWth of low carbon heat with N+1 redundancy that gives system availability in the event of component failure. To ensure that this heat is efficiently used the project covers fitting of 17,300m2 of insulated roofing, replacing older single glazed windows with 4,540m2 of high efficiency double glazing, and 12,972 m2 of insulating cladding.
Commenting on this latest development, John Abraham, Chief Operating Officer - Veolia UK & Ireland - Industrial, Water & Energy said:
"Using the whole holistic building approach is part of our Building a Zero Carbon Future programme, and is key to advancing healthcare energy efficiency, cutting carbon emissions and providing cost savings that can be redirected to patient care. By targeting annual carbon savings of 4,129 tonnes, we are actively supporting the NHS decarbonisation programme and delivering lower cost energy for the healthcare sector.
“We look forward to working with the teams at East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust and helping them achieve their environmental goals.”
Chris Hodgson, Director of Estates and Facilities at East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, said:
“This project will make a significant contribution to the trust’s goals to reduce our organisational carbon footprint. As well as the significant carbon savings that the project will deliver, the additional cladding and insulation to the hospital will create a more comfortable environment for both our patients and our staff”.
Veolia has been working with East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust since 2009, and currently provides energy and facilities management to over 100 hospitals in the UK. These support the healthcare for around 8.1 million inpatients each year, and reduce CO2 emissions in the healthcare sector by 120,000 tonnes.
In becoming the benchmark company for ecological transformation, Veolia is committed to tackle climate change, resource depletion, biodiversity collapse, and pollution. By expanding the use of existing solutions, and developing new innovative solutions, the company is accelerating the process to radically change patterns of production and consumption and placing ecology at the heart of every process.
