Comprehensive Energy Management Helps Owensboro Health Earn ENERGY STAR Certification, Saves More than $3.3 Million

The Challenge

When Owensboro Health in Owensboro, Kentucky, replaced its 75-year-old flagship hospital with a new 788,000 sq.-ft. medical complex, key priorities included patient comfort, energy efficiency, and cost reduction. Upon completion of the new facility, healthcare system leaders began looking for ways to further improve energy efficiency.

“We purchased energy-efficient equipment and installed advanced controls that gave us the flexibility to make adjustments if needed,” said Owensboro Health Executive Director of Facilities, Joe Taylor. “Our new facility was performing well, but we wanted outside expertise to help us get the most out of our new technologies.”

Hospital leaders set a goal to earn ENERGY STAR® certification for the facility which requires meeting strict energy performance standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)¹. As part of the certification process and in alignment with their commitment to serving as good environmental stewards to the community, they planned to reduce the facility’s carbon footprint.

The Solution

Based on a long-term collaboration with Trane, hospital leaders contacted the building technology and energy solutions company to help develop a holistic approach to ongoing energy management for the new facility. Trane proposed controls optimization programs to provide actionable insights and recommendations to help the healthcare system enhance energy efficiency and drive energy savings. Hospital leaders agreed and a comprehensive energy management optimization process was launched.

Enhancing productivity and comfort

The project team first added a building automation system (BAS), providing an enterprise view of hospital and medical buildings. With the BAS, trained facility engineers can remotely access HVAC systems to address comfort issues, make schedule changes, adjust set points, manage alarms, and troubleshoot issues.

Operators use the system to monitor temperature and humidity data from sensors installed throughout the facility to help ensure comfort and manage energy use. With full visibility to equipment operations, the healthcare facility and Trane energy experts worked together to identify and implement controls optimization programming to drive continuous improvement. In addition, Trane energy experts provide ongoing monitoring to identify energy use inefficiencies, uncover opportunities for improvement, and provide insights and solutions. 

Managing Energy Use

The Trane team provides comprehensive utility billing analysis, usage tracking, and feedback. The services include real-time energy monitoring through the building automation system (BAS) to view energy usage and demand profiles. This transforms the data into meaningful information to evaluate additional savings potential, helping the healthcare system make effective decisions about managing its buildings.

Collaborating with the hospital’s clinical staff, the Trane and Owensboro Health Facilities team also added the use of set-back scheduling to power down HVAC units serving operating rooms during periods of low usage. “Night setbacks allow us to save energy in our operating rooms, while extending the useful life of the mechanical equipment,” said Taylor. “We can cut the number of air changes in half, while still meeting temperature and humidity requirements, and power everything back up to full capacity in less than three minutes.”

Uncovering opportunities

With an energy awareness mindset, the Owensboro Health team met with Trane quarterly to drive improvement. “These meetings proved so helpful that they now occur monthly,” said Trane Healthcare Account Executive, Christy Fetsch. These focused meetings give us time to share building analytics, do ongoing building training and when needed, go onsite and address any challenges in real time.”

The Results

Based on the comprehensive energy management process that was implemented, Owensboro Health has achieved over $3.3 million in energy savings at the hospital² . Due to this significant energy and cost savings following the project with Trane, Owensboro Health was awarded the 2019 Excellence in Healthcare Facility Management Leadership Award from the American Society for Health Care Engineering. The award recognizes individuals or facility management departments that implement new or innovative programs or processes to optimize the physical environment and improve patient care.

The hospital also earned ENERGY STAR certification in 2019 and renewed it in 2020, 2022 and 2023. The healthcare system’s Pleasant Valley Medical Building also received ENERGY STAR certification in 2022 after Trane recommissioned it, and again in 2023.

The upgrades helped future-proof both facilities by reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Carbon reduction over the same time period at the hospital alone equates to 26,073 Metric Tons CO₂e. According to the EPA, this is equivalent to burning more than 29 million lbs. of coal or driving 5,802 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles for one year.

“For us at Owensboro Health, it’s all about serving our patients to the best of our ability,” said Taylor.  “A big part of that is making sure we are not spending our limited dollars needlessly.  Our efforts have resulted in over $3 million in savings that could be poured right back into patient care.  That’s what I call success!”

_{1 ENERGY STAR Certification for Buildings: Buildings that are ENERGY STAR certified, an annual process, must save energy, save money, and help protect the environment by generating fewer greenhouse gas emissions than typical building.}

_{2 Using 2015/2016 energy use as a baseline}