A huge development at hospitals in Newcastle-upon-Tyne has led to an order for a third GE Energy Jenbacher CHP gas engine at Freeman Hospital. Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plants are ideally suited to provide hospitals with the necessary amounts of energy to cater for its electricity and heating requirements. CHP engines are designed to produce both heat and power from a single energy source instead of gas and electricity, making it an energy efficient and cost effective alternative to traditional power sources.
Seeing these benefits, Freeman Hospital have partnered with Dalkia and Clarke Energy to install a third CHP gas engine as part of a major expansion at the hospital. The 20,000m2 development, due to open Spring/Summer 2008, will include a 130-bed Cancer and Renal Services Centre and multi-storey car park. The 1.4MWe GE Energy Jenbacher gas engine will join the two award winning 1 1.2 MWe engines already housed at the hospital, taking the combined energy output to 3.8MWe.
Installed in 1997, the two engines have each clocked up over 80,000 hours of running time and produced a total of more than 192,000MW of energy. The combined power is enough to run 1,845,710 ECG (electrocardiograph) monitors for a year – 3,030 for every NHS hospital in England. Coupled with emissions savings of 44,000 tonnes of CO2 since installation over conventional heat and power producers, the Clarke Energy/GE Energy Jenbacher partnership is at the forefront of decentralised power generation offering a greener, cleaner future for us all.
