Decarbonization in action: Shifting to renewable electricity for heating hospital buildings

[6 MIN READ]

In this article:

• Heating our buildings from the burning of fossil fuels is a major source of emissions in health care. That’s why Providence is planning to transition away from fossil fuels for heating and is committed to purchasing 100% renewable electricity by 2030. 

• However, retrofitting existing hospitals to heat with renewable, clean energy is a challenge because of both infrastructure, cost and resiliency considerations. 

• Read on to learn how Providence, the American Hospital Association and the American Society of Healthcare Engineers created a study to find the best way to retrofit a hospital to electrify heating systems, using renewable energy as a significant strategy for reducing carbon emissions. 

As a leading health care organization in environmental stewardship, Providence is committed to finding new ways to curb emissions across our hospitals and facilities as we work toward carbon negative.

One area of opportunity is how we heat our 51 hospitals. Currently, all Providence hospitals are heated by energy from burning fossil fuels. This fuel burning creates nearly the same emissions each year as if we were heating 23,000 homes. Electrification of these heating systems, using renewable electrical energy sources, would help to massively cut emissions, increase efficiency and reduce our carbon emissions. 

With a goal of purchasing 100% renewable electricity by 2030, Providence is eyeing ways to lower our dependence on fossil fuels. While it’s easier to install electrified heating systems in new buildings, retrofitting old buildings – including our standing hospitals – is more challenging.

“Taking a look at how we can convert existing systems to more efficient, lower carbon solutions is essential to moving the needle on decarbonizing health care,” says Geoff Glass, senior manager, energy and sustainability for Providence Real Estate and Strategy Operations. “This work is not simple, inexpensive or easy but is necessary for progress toward a carbon-negative future.”

Making decarbonization in hospitals actionable

This work is important because health care is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 8.5% of national emissions. Emerging regulations, including in states Providence serves, are also beginning to demand more efficient, low carbon buildings. Fortunately, upgrading facilities offers the chance to reduce long-term operating costs through more efficient energy use. 

However, the effort of electrifying hospital heating systems presents unique challenges. That’s because hospitals are used 24 hours per day to support patient care, and any major renovations must be done to avoid disrupting this work. Retrofits are also difficult since facilities teams must work within an existing space and within the design parameters of existing heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems. 

“New buildings have different technologies and design considerations available that planners can use when starting from scratch,” says Kara Brooks, senior associate director, sustainability for the American Hospital Association. “Existing spaces have set floor plans, landlocked locations and operational considerations that limit what new technologies we can bring in.” 

To better understand these challenges and the solutions available, Providence recently participated in a groundbreaking study in collaboration with the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE). 

The goal of this study, taking place at Providence St. Peter Hospital, was to find the best way to affordably convert a natural gas heating system to a more efficient energy system using electric heat – all without disrupting patient care. 

“St. Peter’s was an interesting study since it’s in a mild climate, is landlocked and was built in 1969,” says Brooks. “It’s a very similar design to many community hospitals across the country, but Providence is pretty unique in being a health system that’s done a lot of work around sustainability. This hospital had already gone through a lot of measures to lower its emissions like reducing anesthetic gas emissions, tackling waste and looking at its vehicle fleet. This project analyzed thermal load because many of these other pieces were already under control.”

This study looked at the entire cost of an energy transition of converting to an electric heating system – from utility costs, building costs and even estimating fines from based on a new building emissions performance standard in Seattle. 

“This is the first time that we are aware of where anyone has looked at the specific process of converting an existing hospital from natural gas to electricity,” says Glass. “This study provides a playbook for how health care facilities can respond to emerging public policy for decarbonization.”

The study is scheduled to be published later this fall. 

Moving St. Peter’s to electric heat

Transitioning to an all-renewable electricity system of heating isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. Together, the Providence facilities team worked with the AHA and ASHE teams to analyze their existing electrical demand and what they have available from the grid – especially during times of peak demand. They then had to understand how moving to electrical heating would impact overall demand. 

After assessing the electricity load, the teams mapped a strategy for increasing efficiency while reducing the additional wintertime electricity burden on the grid due to heating. That included developing a master plan for converting natural gas heating to electric heating. The teams collaborated to find ways to make the building as efficient as possible – from retrofitting inefficient windows to identifying more efficient HVAC retrofits – to finding changes that could reduce emissions and lower electricity load while reducing reliance on fossil fuels.  

“When we think about reducing emissions from energy, we must look at our current systems and the best way to transition toward more renewable sources,” says Glass. “We don’t want to take more than our fair share from the electrical grid at a time when society will be electrifying transportation and building design, which makes increasing our efficiency even more important.” 

Together, Providence, the AHA and ASHE looked at the technical and financial feasibility of different electric heating options and how they could be implemented. One area no one was willing to compromise on was the impact on patient care, and the teams planned their work so that they would minimize disruption to patient care while maintaining the hospitals' ability to care for its community.

“We had to take a look at designs and phases of implementing them to get lower demand and not overwhelm the hospital’s electrical infrastructure,” says Brooks. “For example, replacing the fossil fuel boilers at St. Peter’s with electric boilers would have exceeded what we had available from the grid. That meant we couldn’t just exchange one boiler for another and had to look for other strategies to see how we could get the hospital operating with lower energy consumption.”

Throughout this study, the teams found that converting to electricity for heating would take between 10-15 years – meaning hospitals across the country need to be mindful about their planning and how they will achieve decarbonization by converting to electricity for heating. 

“We learned that these conversions take time and hospitals have to start planning early and set their targets with that long timeline in mind,” says Brooks. “It was very important to Providence and the ASHE team to publish this case study so other health systems can learn from it.”

Partnering for decarbonization

The AHA and ASHE brought funding, expertise and national credibility to this study. As an innovator in environmental stewardship and decarbonization efforts, Providence was similarly able and willing to provide the internal expertise and data to make this study viable. 

“Providence brought a philosophy of believing they should share their learnings with the field – because we’re all in this together,” says Brooks. “The facilities team was willing to put forth a lot of time and effort to make sure this study was successful. It was important to us that we had a partner who was willing to say ‘yes’ to our asks.”

It takes all of us to fight climate change. You can learn more about Providence’s efforts to combat climate change through these resources:

• Providence Center for Environmental Stewardship
• Environmental Justice at Providence
• Providence Climate Action Plan

Contributing caregiver

Geoff Glass, senior manager, energy and sustainability for Providence Real Estate and Strategy Operations.

Kara Brooks, senior associate director, sustainability for the American Hospital Association.

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This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical care. Always follow your health care professional’s instructions.