MITIE has been chosen as the preferred bidder to develop a multi-million pound energy innovation centre covering hospitals in Cambridge.
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) made the announcement this week, unveiling ambitious plans for the new facility, which will service Addenbrooke’s and Rosie hospitals and potential future developments on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
Developed in partnership with MITIE and the NHS Carbon and Energy Fund, the centre will provide heating, hot water and electricity and reduce the trust’s carbon footprint by 30,000 tonnes of CO2 a year, helping to surpass NHS sustainability targets by 27%. This will equate to a 47% cut in carbon emissions over the 25-year contract term.
The trust’s existing energy centre houses the NHS’s first combined heat and power plant which, for the past 20 years, has been providing sustainable energy to the expanding campus. The trust 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.
With advances in technologies, the new energy centre which will house a brand new incinerator, a highly-efficient Rolls Royce combined heat and power plant and will also use wood chip as a fuel source.
Besides developing and operating the energy centre, MITIE will also invest in reducing energy demand on the existing CUH campus through a number of initiatives including a major lighting upgrade.
Carin Charlton, director of estates and facilities management at the trust, said: “This is a very exciting project that enables us to cut our carbon footprint significantly, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, and exceed our sustainability targets. By utilising a number of different energy efficient technologies we can potentially deliver this low-carbon, low-cost energy to further NHS developments on the biomedical campus.”
Mike Tivey, managing director of MITIE’s asset management division, added: “This will be a state-of-the-art energy centre that will deliver significant economic and sustainability benefits. In an increasingly volatile energy environment this will provide the hospital trust with increased energy resilience and predictably priced energy over the long term.”
Construction work on the centre is expected to start at the end of the year and the new facility will be fully operational by 2015.
