Specialist & Acute Care Centre

In 2009, the hospital’s average steam consumption was around 295 tonnes per month with the lowest figure recorded at 282 tonnes per month. Following the installation of Thermal Energy International’s (TEI) GEM venturi orifice steam traps in 2010 the average steam consumption was reduced to 265 tonnes per month with the lowest monthly-recorded figure dropping to 252 tonnes. Savings in energy alone would enable the hospital to receive a payback on the installation in just 18 months.

A total of 70 GEM Traps have been installed throughout the hospital replacing traditional thermodynamic steam traps, which on average were either failing open, shut or half-open at a rate of 10% per annum. Together with other energy saving incentives already introduced, the GEM Traps have helped ensure that the hospital has met the Government’s mandatory performance targets to reduce primary energy use by 15% from 2000 to 2010 in its new and existing buildings.

The hospital’s current output is 5.1 million tonnes per annum. By 2015 the hospital anticipates reducing this to just 4.6 million tonnes due to a raft of energy efficiency measures including the installation of GEM Traps, a new CHP system and a FLU-ACE stack economizer.

A hospital representative said,

Obviously our initial carbon reduction targets were very much in line with those set out by the [the hospital group] as a whole, but we are now aiming to go somewhat further than we are actually required to do via a whole range of measures. I saw GEM Traps in use during a demonstration at [another hospital] and was very impressed. We have found the savings they have made really significant, reducing our steam consumption by between 50 and 60 tonnes per month.”