California to be first state in nation to have an all-electric hospital
Eden Villalovas
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The University of California Irvine Medical Center is scheduled to open the nation’s first hospital powered fully by electricity in 2025.
The hospital partnered with tk1sc, a WSP global company focused on environmental strategic advisory and engineering services. The 350,000-square-foot hospital will be powered by a central utility plant, accommodating four water-cooled chillers and two 2,000-ton cooling towers.
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“It’s going to be wonderful that this project has the potential to be a case study tool providing valuable insights of how an all-electrical hospital actually operates from a demand standpoint,” Ray Swartz, senior principal, electrical engineer of record, said in a statement for WSP.
Daily operations will rely solely on electric power, but the hospital will include backup diesel generation in case of a power failure, Joe Brothman, facilities and general services director for UCI Health, told the Los Angeles Times.
“What was really fulfilling on this project was being able to introduce the stretch goal of providing all-electric steam systems as well as the all-electric heating systems to UCI Health,” Roger Carter, senior principal, mechanical engineer of record, said in a statement for WSP. “We enabled our client to do something they had wanted to do but didn’t think was possible.”
Located at the north end of the UC Irvine campus, the first facility of its kind will use all electric and solar power to supply its needs. The establishment will host the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and Ambulatory Care, the Joe C. Wen & Family UCI Health Center for Advanced Care, and an acute care center, according to the WSP website.
They will emphasize key clinical programs that focus on digestive health, neurology, neurosurgery, oncology, and orthopedics.
The project was approved by the UC Board of Regents in January 2021 and will cost $1.3 billion, according to a UCI Health press release from November 2021.
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“The new UCI Medical Center — Irvine will be a full-service academic medical complex, bringing a broad range of the most advanced healthcare services to coastal and southern Orange County, including access to the hundreds of clinical trials underway at UCI Health,” said UCI Health CEO Chad Lefteris in the press release.
Brothman told the Los Angeles Times that a team is in place looking into expanding full electrification to other UCI Health facilities, part of its goal to achieve carbon neutrality by the year 2025.