San Diego VA Hospital - 4.6 MW CHP System - Case Study
Quick Facts
LOCATION: San Diego, CA
MARKET SECTOR: Hospital
FACILITY SIZE: 1,030,000 square feet
FACILITY PEAK LOAD: 6.8 MW
EQUIPMENT: 4.6 MW Solar Turbines
Mercury™ 50 gas turbine, absorption chiller
FUEL: Natural Gas
USE OF THERMAL ENERGY: Space and
autoclave heating, absorption chilling
and domestic hot water
CHP TOTAL EFFICIENCY: 64%
ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS: Less than 5ppm NOx
TOTAL PROJECT COST: $4 M
YEARLY ENERGY SAVINGS: $1-1.5 M
PAYBACK: 4 years
CHP IN OPERATION SINCE: 2005
Site Description
The Veteran’s Affairs San Diego Healthcare System (VASDHS) provides health care to more than 240,000 veterans in San Diego and Imperial Valley counties. The San Diego VA Hospital has 304 hospital beds; 510,000 annual outpatient visits; 54,000 enrolled patients;7000 admissions; and 2000 full-time employees. VASDHS is affiliated with the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. The site covered by the project includes the VA Hospital complex which consists of the Main Hospital Building, the Spinal Cord Injury Building, and the Central Heating and Cooling Plant. The Joint Commission has recognized VASDHS as a 2013 Top Performer on key quality measures.
Reasons for CHP
The San Diego VA Hospital chose to develop a CHP system for its facilities for four main reasons: energy reliability; energy efficiency; pollution reduction; and cost savings. This strategic decision was instrumental in ensuring that, unlike other San Diego County facilities that experienced total loss of all electric power in September 2011 during a county wide power outage, the San Diego VA Hospital was able to maintain power for all outlets, clinical diagnostic equipment, and air conditioning and ventilation in its facilities during the outage. The installed CHP system is also equipped with a recuperator, which provides more energy to electrical power generation and less to heating, which matches the Medical Center Campus load profile extremely well. The CHP systems replaced two older gas turbines, substantially reducing emissions and generating $4.2 million in emissions offset credits.
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