Beaumont, Farmington Hills was Awarded for the 2021 Battle of the Buildings Competition in the Healthcare Category

Beaumont Hospital, Farmington Hills was founded in 1965 and formerly known as Botsford Hospital. In March 2014 the formerly named Botsford Hospital merged with Beaumont Health and was renamed Beaumont Farmington Hills Hospital. Today, Beaumont Farmington Hills Hospital is a Level II Trauma Center and a major osteopathic teaching facility in conjunction with Michigan State University. It is a 330-bed hospital that cares for more than 16,000 inpatients and 60,000 emergency trauma patients annually. Most recently, Beaumont Farmington Hills Hospital and Spectrum Health have merged.

For the past six years, Beaumont Health has had an ongoing energy management program that spans across all eight hospitals, with a goal to continuously reduce energy demand, cost, and consumption overall. Implementing DTE’s Strategic Energy Management program, they have identified energy conservation measures they are able to implement at the hospital level, and standardize efficiency improvements across all eight of those hospitals.  

Beaumont Farmington Hills Hospital specifically, has launched a program to utilize third party software to look for inefficiencies to correct issues, identify operational inefficiencies, and fix said issues and repair equipment before the energy has been wasted. Such repairs and energy efficient improvements have included:

• Variable Kitchen Exhaust 
• New Bed Tower Light Power Density Reduction 
• AHU Optimization 
• Condenser Water Reset and Chiller Staging 
• DTE Chiller Tune-Up 
• Pavilion AHU Optimization 

Altogether, these measures cost a little under $165,000, with an annual savings of $61,000, and utility rebates around $107,000. 

Energy efficiency is a process as Edna Lorenz, System Energy Manager at Beaumont Health, described during our interview. She described that what makes a successful energy efficiency program is the collaboration between facilities staff and consultants, and “building a level of trust for the entire team to ensure that everything implemented is in the best interest of the facility.” She noted how a successful program is especially important for hospital systems  who want to be as energy efficient as possible, but don’t want to sacrifice their quality of care due to uncomfortable environments or other issues. Thus getting facilities staff and employees on board with energy efficiency is paramount. This is done by demonstrating that many of the measures they are looking to implement do not impact patient care or safety, but could significantly reduce energy consumption and cost- something that is especially significant for a not-for-profit organization such as Beaumont Health. Lorenz stressed the overall importance of providing that education to hospital staff due to the significant impact of energy savings for healthcare systems. She also expressed her own gratitude for participation of facilities staff at Beaumont Farmington Hills Hospital for “being proactive and looking for ways to improve the operations of their systems.”

We were thrilled to celebrate the energy efficiency accomplishments of Beaumont, Farmington Hills at our annual Michigan Energy Summit on June 15, 2022 where they were awarded in the Healthcare Category.