Mark Chrisman (Headshot credit: Henderson Engineers)
Healthcare facilities are among the most energy-intensive buildings, with significant greenhouse gas emissions due to large heating and cooling loads, as well as large medical equipment power requirements, according to Buildings, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Energy.
Furthermore, the health sector’s climate footprint represents 4.4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). As more global organizations such as WHO and Health Care Without Harm recognize climate change as the single greatest threat to health in the world today, the push for sustainability and decarbonization is intensifying in the healthcare sector.
In response, hospitals are increasingly exploring electrification paired with renewable energy as a viable path to reduce carbon emissions, improve energy efficiency, and align with local and national climate targets. All-electric hospitals, where all critical operations including heating, cooling, refrigeration, and lighting are powered entirely by electricity rather than fossil fuels, represent a transformative shift in healthcare infrastructure.
This article examines the energy savings, operational considerations, and infrastructure challenges associated with this transition.
Part 2 will dive into the economic, operational, and design considerations for healthcare projects looking to shift to all-electric models while also offering practical insights into how healthcare facilities can lead the charge toward a more resilient, low-carbon future.
Environmental imperatives of electrification in healthcare design
Thanks to a growing shift toward renewable energy sources over the past 20 years, the carbon intensity of electricity generated in the United States has declined by 40 percent and is expected to continue this downward trajectory, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Multiple facts have historically driven this shift, including favorable tax policy, rapid decline in solar and energy storage prices, renewable mandates, corporate investment, community interest, and the retirement of coal-fired power plants.
For the past decade, utility scale renewables (solar photovoltaic and onshore wind) have been the least expensive and fastest new energy systems to deploy. Electrification helps mitigate emissions by eliminating on-site combustion of fossil fuels, allowing hospitals to transition to cleaner energy sources and meet environmental regulations.
Over the life of a hospital, it’s conservatively estimated that an all-electric facility will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17-58 percent depending on the climate zone (weather conditions) and carbon intensity (the amount of renewable energy that’s part of the energy mix) of the regional grid serving each facility.
Healthcare projects going electrical
As many state and local governments implement stricter emissions limits for buildings including hospitals, updated energy code requirements, and/or carbon pricing mechanisms that put a price on greenhouse gas emissions, more hospitals in the U.S. and abroad are considering or have begun transitioning to an all-electric model to stay compliant and reduce their environmental footprint.
For example, the new Prosser Memorial Health Hospital in Prosser, Wash., engineered by Henderson Engineers (Lenexa, Kan.) and opened in February, incorporates all-electric systems across all operations, resulting in an estimated 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over the next 25 years.
Similarly, UCI Medical Center-Irvine, scheduled to open in December in Irvine, Calif., will be fully powered by electricity.
Additionally, building codes and energy regulations across the globe increasingly favor electrification. Hospitals must also navigate evolving standards such as USGBC’s LEED for healthcare projects, which sets frameworks for building green healthcare facilities; ASHRAE 189.3, which addresses requirements for high-performance, sustainable healthcare facilities; and local building performance mandates. Regulators also are beginning to require energy benchmarking and transparency reporting, further incentivizing energy-efficient, all-electric designs.
Economic drivers of electrification
Healthcare providers have various tools at their disposal to help fund electrification, including local and state government incentives, utility rebates, and public-private partnerships. Strategic planning and phased implementation can also spread expenses over time.
Federal programs and state-level initiatives often provide tax credits, low-interest financing, and technical assistance for clean energy projects in the healthcare sector.
Additionally, electrification eliminates expenses related to installing gas lines and gas-fired equipment such as furnaces. For example, Kaiser Permanente’s all-electric medical office building in Santa Rosa, Calif., was able to save $1 million in first costs by eliminating the need to connect to the natural gas line. Hospitals also stand to benefit from long-term energy cost savings.
As electric technologies become more efficient and electricity from renewable sources becomes more accessible and affordable, operating costs can be reduced.
The fossil fuel markets also experience volatility. Electricity prices—especially from local renewable sources—can offer greater price stability and potentially more resiliency. Furthermore, lifecycle cost analysis, which is conducted on a project-by-project basis, often reveals that all-electric hospitals enjoy a lower total cost of ownership.
Technological advancements in energy storage
Modern electric HVAC systems, including heat pumps, have become viable alternatives to traditional fossil-fuel-based systems. Air-source and ground-source heat pumps, which respectively use outside air and underground temperatures to provide heating and cooling, now perform efficiently even in colder climates.
The advancement of renewable integration technologies and energy storage, which allow facilities to produce power on-site and reserve it for use during the most in-demand periods, also enables hospitals to stabilize their energy use and reduce dependency on the grid.
Energy storage can also be used as an economic driver when used to reduce utility demand charges and leverage time of use electricity rates, in which the price a facility pays for electricity is determined by the time of day.
Innovations in smart grid technology, digital twin simulations, and energy modeling tools help hospitals to predict performance and optimize designs from day one.
Mark Chrisman is the health sector executive at Henderson Engineers (Lenexa, Kan.), and can be reached at [email protected].
Read Part 2 here for the economic, operational, and design considerations for healthcare projects looking to shift to all-electric models.
