Nottingham University Hospitals set to install lashings of energy-saving upgrades

The NHS Trust have partnered with E.ON to deliver a 15-year energy efficiency programme that will help hospitals deliver net zero targets.

Yesterday it was announced that Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) is partnering with E.ON, an international energy company focused on smart grids and customer solutions to drive the energy transition in Europe, to help deliver environmental targets and improve staff and patient comfort.

One site that is at the forefront of the programme is the Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) where work has begun to install a renewable geothermal heating and cooling system as well as new energy saving windows and smarter building controls.

In addition, at the heart of the imitative will be a £15m energy centre providing low carbon heating and cooling to the QMC. Built and operated by E.ON, the new energy centre will house four high-efficiency heat pumps that extract heat from air and will also draw from the natural warmth of the earth.

In order to successfully complete this, 64 boreholes descending up to 250 metres, which equates to the length of seven Nottingham trams end-to-end, under the ground will provide the hospital with a sustainable low carbon energy source.

Overall, the 15-year project is expected to cost £64m, which has been provided by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and delivered by Salix Finance, and is estimated to cut QMC’s carbon emissions by 10,000 tonnes of CO2 or 30% a year initially, increasing to around 43% once the current gas-fired heating system is decommissioned.

‘This partnership demonstrates our significant commitment to environmental sustainability and offers a creative solution to meeting our energy needs and tackling climate change, while at the same time improving patients and staff comfort by allowing us to better manage temperatures within our buildings,’ Anthony May, chief executive of Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said. ‘Innovative projects like these will play a hugely important role in helping us meet our ambitious goal of achieving a net zero carbon operation for heating and cooling system emissions by 2040.’

Images: Paul Weston and Eranjan

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