Launching a Corporate Health Care Design-Build RCx and MBCx Program
Grumman|Butkus Associates utilized a design-build retro-commissioning (DBRCx) approach to assist a large for-profit health care organization implement a nationwide retro-commissioning (RCx) program across multiple hospitals.
Design-build retro-commissioning (DBRCx) is a new approach Grumman|Butkus Associates (GBA) has developed to assist a large for-profit health care organization in implementing a nationwide retro-commissioning (RCx) program across multiple hospitals. During the past 10 years, RCx has become a standard method for achieving energy savings for institutional, commercial, and industrial facilities. Savings typically target 3%-6% of the utility bill and result in a one- to two-year simple payback of the direct measure costs (material and labor to implement the measure), not including the engineering effort to identify savings opportunities or provide measurement and verification (M&V) services. A typical project starts with an engineering team that identifies savings opportunities. The owner selects the measures, a contractor completes the implementation, and the engineering team verifies the savings; sometimes, third-party verification is also provided. Many local utility programs offer incentives ranging from covering the engineering analysis costs to cash incentives based on verified savings from the projects implemented.
In 2017, GBA was hired to implement a combined RCx and monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx) program across 27 acute care facilities. While the organization owns all the facilities, the hospitals are independently run by local C-suite and facilities teams. The portfolio varies in size (square footage), number of beds, and type and age of equipment. Some facilities have central heating and cooling plants with large, built-up, custom air-handling units with a central building automation system (BAS). Others rely on smaller, locally controlled DX systems.