Background

Advocate South Suburban Hospital, part of the Advocate Southland Health Network, is an acute-care facility providing a wide range of comprehensive inpatient, outpatient, diagnostic and ambulatory medical services.

Starting early in the design process, the planning and design team from Advocate South Suburban enrolled the project in the ComEd® Energy Efficiency Program new construction offering, to get recommendations from our technical team and to maximize the energy savings and receive incentives.

The ComEd team worked to identify low-risk, cost-effective, energy efficiency strategies that go beyond minimum code requirements. The team used energy models to evaluate each strategy and present owners and designers with a customized incentive offer that accelerated return on investment for the energy efficiency measures. This Performance Path approach is available for new construction and major renovation projects that are early in the design process to maximize opportunities that enable the incorporation of high-performance design strategies.

The Solution

Advocate South Suburban Hospital project consisted of expanding their existing building to include 97,600 ft² of area.

The project included two new air-cooled chillers and a steam forced draft boiler located in the central plant. The new building’s HVAC system was tied to the hospital’s central plant to optimize the usage of the existing energy efficient water-cooled chiller, reduce the redundancy and improve the new building’s infrastructure. The air handling unit (AHU) serving operating rooms has a dedicated outdoor air system (DOAS) unit with desiccant wheel for dehumidification.

Measures Installed

The project installed the following list of energy conservation measures:

• Mass and Steel Framed Wall Insulation: Installed additional insulation to achieve the design assembly U-Value for different wall assemblies.
• Interior Lighting Power: Installed high-efficiency LED fixtures to reduce lighting power density.
• Corridor Occupancy Controls: Implemented occupancy-based lighting controls that exceed the minimum requirement of the energy code.
• Operating Room (OR) Airflow Setback During Unoccupied Hours: Reduced airflow from 20 ACH to 10 ACH in operating rooms when operating rooms are unoccupied.
• Chiller Cooling Efficiency: Installed high efficiency air-cooled chiller equipment. Chillers are equipped with remote condensers to facilitate cold weather operation for critical cooling loads.
• Desiccant Wheel: Used a Dedicated Outdoor Air System with desiccant wheel to dehumidify air in operating rooms instead of producing lower temperature chilled water.
• Dry-Cooler and Supplemental Water-Cooled Chiller: Used throughout the winter to provide energy efficient cooling to the equipment cooling loads and sterilizers.

Project Benefits

Advocate South Suburban Hospital qualified for the Performance Pathway and received $84,500* in total incentives from ComEd. The 97,600 ft² addition project in Hazel Crest reduced their estimated energy costs by $62,100** annually.