Turn off the light when you leave the room.
Lighting accounts for about 25% of the energy use at a typical health care facility1. Decreasing demand for power by decreasing lighting demand can go a long way in reaching our overall goal of a 15 percent reduction (or more) in power usage. Some suggestions for curbing our energy usage related to lighting are listed below.
Have you heard the myth that it uses more energy to turn a light on and off frequently than to just leave it on? MythBusters set out to bust this myth and were successful! Turning off lights is the way to save energy, even if the room is unoccupied only for a few minutes. Click
Here to get Mythbusters' details on how "lights off" trumps "leave lights on".
Turning off lights during summer afternoons is especially important, when the demand for electricity is at its peak. Turning off lights and utilizing day-lighting strategies can reduce energy demand by up to 50 percent2.
Turning off lights during the day and at night provides benefits to patients and caregivers alike. According to a study by Dr. Anjali Joseph (2006)3:
- natural light has benefits over electric-light sources in regulating circadian rhythms and maintaining overall health
- exposure to natural light reduces depression in hospital patients
- the length of hospital stays in cardiac intensive-care units is shorter for patients in sunny rooms versus dull rooms
- mortality rates in cardiac intensive-care units are lower in sunny rooms versus dull rooms
- patients exposed to increased sunlight take 22% fewer analgesic medications than the average patient
- exposure to intermittent artificial light by night-shift workers (versus bright artificial light) keeps circadian rhythms in proper alignment and reduces the frequency of gastric ulcers occurring among night-shift workers
- increased daylight has been linked to higher job satisfaction and work performance
The End Result
If Vanderbilt University Medical Center decreases its electricity demand for lighting by 15%,
it could avoid consuming almost 1.3 megawatt-hours of electricity in a day on peak demand days!
But what does this mean?
1.3 megawatt-hours of electricity is the same amount of power consumed by 30 average-sized homes in Nashville in a day.
Check The Math
25% of power for heating and air conditioning x 60% of Vanderbilt's energy budget x
60 megawatt-hours consumption per day (on peak days) = 9 megawatt-hours, and
15% of 9 megawatt-hours = 1.35 megawatt-hours
Energy consumption of one average house in Nashville for a day = 0.043 megawatt-hours4
References
1 Consortium For Energy Efficiency, Inc. "Commercial Building Performance: Health Care Facilities", 2005.
2 Energy Center of Wisconsin, "Energy Savings from Daylighting: A Controlled Experiment", Report No. 233-1, May 2008.
3 Joseph, Anjali, PhD. "The Impact of Light on Outcomes in Healthcare Settings", The Center for Health Design, August 2006.
4 Nashville Electric Service web page "Residential Rates", 2008.
Patient Care Areas
Heating and Cooling | Lighting | Computers and Equipment | Miscellaneous Items
