AIIMS to get a Green Makeover & Save 16 Crores in Power Bills

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences has inaugurated its green hospital project recently, to join a clutch of  green hospitals like Max Balaji Super Speciality in Delhi, Kohinoor hospital in Mumbai, Govt. Kumaramangalam Medical College and Hospital in Salem in the country.

Majority funded by the New Energy and Industrial technology Division ( NEDO), a body set up by the Japanese government after the two oil crisis of the 1970’s, that is focused on developing alternative and sustainable energy solutions.   The AIIMS project is designed to enable more effective management and processing of medical care data along with  a goal to reduce overall hospital energy consumption. For hospitals, power costs are a major operating costs, thanks to the need for 24×7 operations for almost the full building normally.

The project is formulated under the MoU which was signed between Ministries of Finance and Health & Family Welfare, AIIMS and New Energy development Organisation (NEDO), Japan back in November 2016.

A green hospital is one that aims to be environmental friendly, utilizes renewable resources, reduces waste by implementing green practices and enhances patient well-being. The concept of a green hospital was perpetuated a few years back by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) through the release of their Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards for building construction. It works on the principle of the three R’s – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The focus is on reducing carbon emissions.  Although the initial cost of construction for green hospitals are higher, it has a long term effect in reducing energy cost.

“Besides this, the building management system installed under the project, would make the infrastructure services more efficient and sustainable,” the AIIMS statement said. The total cost of the project is Rs 110 crore. The project was inaugurated by Randeep Guleria, AIIMS director along with Kenko Sone, Minister of Economic and Development, Embassy of Japan and Hiroshi Oikawa, president of NEDO.

For implementation of the  demonstration project, NEDO selected Hitachi to introduce an energy management system (EMS), install new or upgraded highly-efficient utility facilities, including solar power generation equipment, and install an IT system which uses a high-efficiency storage server. The demonstration project is scheduled to be completed by the end of FY2019.

Total investment is expected to be around 110 Crores which will be shared by NEDO and AIIMS. NEDO will bear 78% of the cost incurred and remaining 22% will be borne by AIIMS.

The project includes the replacement of Air conditioning chiller plants of aggregate capacity of 4,500 TR by energy efficient VFD technology based chillers, replacement of approx 32,000 CFL light fitting by LED based fixtures, electronic monitoring system, solar generating panel of 670 KW and aggregation of existing IT servers and medical data integration platform by installation of server and storage with 650 Terabyte capacity.

In a statement, AIIMS informed that with the intervention AIIMS embraces latest technology to contribute to an environment friendly pursuit. This is expected to lead to Rs 16 crore per annum saving in the electricity bill. Moreover, the estimated CO2 emission reduction would be 14,500 tonnes a year.