A Look at Health Care Buildings
Are they on multibuilding complexes?
How do they use energy and how much does it cost?
How do they use energy and how much does it cost?
Health care buildings account for 11 percent of all commercial energy consumption, using a total of 561 trillion Btu of combined site electricity, natural gas, fuel oil, and district steam or hot water. They are the fourth highest consumer of total energy of all the building types (see total energy figure on home page).
Natural gas and electricity are the predominant fuels used in health care buildings, with natural gas used a bit more than electricity. Health care buildings are more likely to use district heat than most building types.
Site electricity is the amount of electricity consumed within the building; electricity use can also be expressed as primary electricity, which includes the energy consumed in generating and transmitting electricity. Health care buildings used 637 trillion Btu of primary electricity, which brings the total energy consumption for health care buildings up to 987 trillion Btu, or 9 percent of total primary consumption for all commercial buildings.
There is no single use of energy in health care buildings that uses a large majority of the total energy. The most energy is used for water heating, followed by space heating and lighting. The miscellaneous category, which accounts for 14 percent of health care consumption, probably consists mostly of energy use by medical equipment.
Health care buildings use an average of 5.3 billion Btu per building and have an energy intensity of 240.4 thousand Btu per square foot. This is the second highest intensity among all commercial building types (see total energy per square foot figure on home page).
Inpatient health care buildings use energy almost three times as intensively as outpatient health care.
Table 4: Major fuel consumption and cost by type of health care and size category
Of all the commercial building types, health care buildings have the fourth highest energy expenditures—$5.3 billion per year—most of this for electricity. The energy expenditures in health care buildings account for 8 percent of energy expenditures in commercial buildings.
On average, $2.26 per square foot is spent on energy in health care buildings, more than the national average for energy usage in commercial buildings ($1.19 per square foot).
Forecasts
The Office of Integrated Analysis and Forecasting (OIAF) uses CBECS data to make commercial sector energy use projections. For estimates of commercial building consumption (and floorspace) from 1998 to 2020, see Table 22 of Supplement Tables to the AEO2000.
Continue: How do they use electricity?
Go to "How do they use energy and how much does it cost?" for other building types:
- Office
- Education
- Health Care
- Retail and Service
- Food Service
Specific questions may be directed to:
Joelle Davis Michaels
joelle.michaels@eia.doe.gov
CBECS Manager
URL: http://www.eia.gov/emeu/consumptionbriefs/cbecs/pbawebsite/health/health_howuseenergy.htm
Release
date: September 11, 2000
File
last modified: January 3, 2001