Journal of Engineering and Architecture

Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions in Venizelio Hospital in Crete, Greece: can it be Carbon Neutral?
John Vourdoubas

Abstract
Hospitals consume large amounts of energy and emit a lot of greenhouse gases. They mainly use fossil fuels to cover their energy needs and the use of renewable energies in them is rather limited. Current work investigates the possibility of using renewable energies for covering all the energy needs in Venizelio hospital, with 440 beds, in Crete, Greece, zeroing its carbon emissions due to operational energy use. The use of solar thermal energy, solar photovoltaic energy, solid biomass and ground source heat pumps has been examined for heat, cooling and electricity generation in the hospital. It has been indicated that the combined use of the abovementioned renewable energy sources could cover all the energy needs in the hospital in a cost-effective way. Total energy consumption in Venizelio hospital has been estimated at 280.4 KWh m-2 year-1, CO2 emissions due to operational energy use at 168 kg CO2 m-2 year-1, while the share of electricity is almost double that of the share of heating oil. The investment cost in renewable energy technologies covering all its energy requirements varies between 5,898,300 € to 8,930,100 € resulting in annual fuel cost savings between 867,600 € to 943,000 €. The results of the current study indicate that the use of various, reliable and cost-effective renewable energies replacing fossil fuels inVenizelio hospital would be profitable and environmentally advantageous.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jea.v6n1a2