Powering up our hospital site to support the NHS Green plan

The blue NHS logo has been a part of the NHS identity for over 30 years but did you know that in 2022, the NHS became the first health system to embed ‘net zero’ into legislation to become more green?

Monday 22 April is Earth Day, and serves a reminder of the importance of environmental conservation and sustainability. 

 

It’s also an opportunity for us to highlight some of the really important work our teams are doing to support NHS England target of becoming net zero by 2040.

 

You may have heard some rumblings (and if you live near our hospital site, you’ve perhaps quite literally heard the rumblings!) about our hospital’s power infrastructure project.

 

Construction work on the project is visible near the front entrance of Whittington Hospital, near Magdala Avenue and Dartmouth Hill. Our teams are working throughout the day to dig up parts of the road to make way for new transformers which will ‘power-up’ our hospital with greener energy.

 

The current power running through Whittington Hospital is 2600 KVA which in the past, has been enough to power our needs.  But with new major development projects on the horizon, this level of power is no longer enough, so the new equipment will enable us to reach 8500 KVA - more than 3 times the amount of power.

 

And this additional power will move our hospital away from fully relying on fossil gas fuel as primary source for heating, to a modern electric heat pumps supplied of green electricity. By completion of the project, which will take a few years to complete, we will be looking at an incredible 80% decrease in carbon emissions.

This is just one project Whittington Health NHS Trust is spearheading that is working towards reducing the impact the NHS has on the environment and helping to secure a better future for generations to come.