Corewell Health Care Center, Royal Oak was Awarded for the 2023 Michigan Battle of the Buildings Competition in the Health/Hospital Category
This year we celebrated 10 years of the Michigan Energy Summit and 10 years of amazing projects and energy efficiency initiatives! Over the past 10 years, we have had a total of 149 winners from 75 different organizations, representing 264 Michigan cities. Since the program's inception in 2014, our competitors have redirected over $100 million of utility costs back to their bottom line and avoided almost 550,000 metric tons of CO2e. Over 272 million square feet of Michigan commercial real estate competed against each other in 2023 in this biggest loser-styled energy competition. The 2023 Michigan Battle of the Buildings competitors saved $7.4 million in energy costs and avoided 47,178 metric tons of CO2e which is equivalent to the carbon sequestered by 55,514 acres of US forests in one year! This year we had 11 industry-specific category winners. We are so excited to announce Corewell Health Care Center in Royal Oak, Michigan as the 2023 Michigan Battle of the Buildings winner in the Health/Hospital Category!
Corewell Health is no stranger to being a winner in the Michigan Battle of the Buildings competition. This award marks their 11th in 10 years! They have been awarded for many different energy efficiency projects but this year, they carried out a project at the Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital Care Center in Royal Oak to achieve a 16.76% reduction in overall energy usage.
In December of 2022 Corewell Health completed an extensive project to tie exhaust fans into the building automation system so that they could turn off those fans and the four large roof top units at night. This site had not been previously able to schedule their RTUs because there was no control of the exhaust fans; and if the RTUs turned off the building would become extremely negative and have issues maintaining reasonable temperatures at night. Even worse, humid air from the pool room would get sucked into surrounding areas and cause flooring to warp. Now that the exhaust fans are on the BAS, those issues have been resolved and the RTUs can safely turn off at night. The exhaust fans were incredibly helpful in allowing the Corewell Health team to put a schedule in place and not negatively impact air quality.
The Facilities Department maintenance HVAC tech Don Nelson and Tim Boucher were very helpful in setting up parameters and helping put the gauge onto units to analyze energy. The Facilities Department maintenance HVAC team also sat in on meetings to discuss any issues with changing the schedules and the process as a whole. Corewell Health also worked with Peter Locke from Leidos.
“As a healthcare organization, to truly deliver on our mission to improve health, instill humanity and inspire hope, we must purposefully choose actions that make a positive, sustainable impact on people, our environment, and the economic health of the communities we serve: People, Planet and Prosperity,” said Kaylee Swanson, Sustainability Analyst at Corewell Health. “We are honored to be recognized for this energy savings initiative at Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital Care Center - 4949 Coolidge Hwy. We hope to continue efforts in reducing carbon emissions related to energy by 15% by early 2026 and our goal is to be carbon neutral by 2040.”
As for future plans for Corewell Health, most recently they signed onto the DTE MI Green Power Program. Additionally, they plan to place solar panels next to their new supply warehouse slated to break ground later this year. They will continue to look for energy efficiency and optimization projects throughout all of their buildings system-wide. They are also looking into a lot of their lighting systems and converting them to LED. The Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital Care Center in Royal Oak is one of the many they would like to continue to have energy savings. They would like to still look into replacing the 20 year old roof top units with packaged units that have morning warm up capabilities as that would help them with schedules and not have to override during the cold winter months.
We were excited to celebrate Corewell Health Care Center, Royal Oak’s accomplishments in energy efficiency at our annual Michigan Energy Summit on May 8, 2024 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they were awarded in the Health/Hospital Category!