Green light for energy innovation centre serving Cambridge hospitals

Published: 25-Jul-2013

Low-carbon technologies to save £30m and cut emissions by 47% at The Rosie and Addenbrooke\'s hospitals

A new energy innovation centre will help to provide low-carbon heating, hot water and electricity for Addenbrooke’s and The Rosie hospitals in Cambridgeshire.

The facility, expected to be one of the largest of its type in the UK, will help Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to save more than £30m on energy costs and will cut carbon emissions by 47%.

This low-carbon, state-of-the-art energy centre will provide us with greater energy independence and reduce the impact of rising energy prices

Utilyx, MITIE’s integrated energy solutions business, was awarded the 25-year contract to develop and operate the centre in March last year and building work will begin shortly after local planners approved the scheme.

The centre will feature a combined heat and power unit, biomass boiler, efficient dual fuel boilers and heat recovery from clinical waste incineration. This will help to reduce the trust’s reliance on grid electricity by more than 50%, protecting the hospitals from rising energy prices.

The project will be developed in partnership with the NHS Carbon and Energy Fund and has been designed with the potential to provide energy to future developments on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

Mark Stokes, managing director of Utilyx’s asset management division, said: “This is a major milestone for this important project, which will have a material impact on the trust’s carbon emissions and energy costs. We’re really excited about moving forward and enabling the energy innovation centre.”

St Clair Armitage, the hospital trust’s director of corporate development, added: “We are very pleased that this excellent project has received planning permission from the county council.

This is a major milestone for this important project, which will have a material impact on the trust’s carbon emissions and energy costs

"Subject to further approvals the energy innovation centre will deliver significant economic and sustainability benefits for the trust and our partners on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. This low-carbon, state-of-the-art energy centre will provide us with greater energy independence and reduce the impact of rising energy prices.”

The trust’s existing energy centre houses the NHS’s first combined heat and power plant which, for the last 20 years, has been providing more sustainable energy to the expanding campus.

In addition, the trust already incinerates its clinical waste onsite within the energy centre and uses clinical waste produced on the campus as a fuel source to provide heat and hot water to the campus.

Besides the development of the energy centre, Utilyx will also reduce energy demand on the existing campus through a number of initiatives including a major lighting upgrade.

Work on the new energy innovation centre will begin next spring and it will be fully operational by 2015.

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