Teams have been putting energy saving LEDs in areas such as wards, outpatient waiting rooms, corridors and canteens as part of a long term project to make services more environmentally sustainable.
LEDs –– short for light emitting diodes –– are between 35-60% more efficient than old style lighting, helping to reduce the hospitals’ carbon footprint and save money.
As well as being cheaper to maintain and run, LEDs light up objects in their natural colours, creating a better quality light for patients, staff and visitors.
Since 2014, more than 13,000 light fittings across Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) have been upgraded, reducing CO2 emissions by around 9,500 tonnes and saving more than £2.7 million on their electricity bills.
Engineers are currently upgrading the equivalent of five clinics (515 lights) as part of the current push, which will reduce CUH’s CO2 emissions by approximately 36 tonnes a year, a saving of around £22,000 based on current grid emission factors.
Kieran Lockey, energy and sustainability engineer, who’s been managing the project calculates that just over a third (35%) of the lighting at CUH has now been upgraded to LEDs.
LEDs are fitted as standard in all new buildings and ward refurbishments. But with more than 24,000 fittings still to be replaced, there’s a long way to go.
And as Richard Hales, energy and sustainability manager explains, whilst changing a light fitting sounds a straightforward job, it can actually be quite complicated:
“It’s understanding that we're on a long journey and it's a massive hospital with thousands and thousands of light fittings.”
“You think we’ve just got to swap a light fitting but actually there are other remedial bits of work where we need to replace things like old rubber cabling. And so we have to build all these things in along the way.”
In addition, there are lots of spaces within the hospitals that are in use 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Richard Hales added:
“You can’t decant patients out of wards just to change the light fittings. So we upgrade the lighting in these areas as part of ward refurbishment programmes.”
The switch to more energy efficient lighting, alongside other work to turn off lights and other equipment when they are not in use, is one of the many things CUH is doing to help reduce its impact on the environment.
CUH launched its Action 50 Green Plan in April 2022, setting out how the Trust will save more than two thousand tonnes from our direct carbon emissions by 2024 and become a net-zero organisation by 2045.
The plan builds on the significant progress already made in addressing the climate emergency, and responds to the ‘Net Zero NHS’ plan published in 2020.
To find more about CUH's Green Plan, click here.
