By Nigel Thomas, National Specification and Project Sales Manager, ABB Electrification
The hospital is the backbone of modern society — a round-the-clock safety net which exists only to alleviate human suffering and save lives. But in today’s world, it has another mission: to save the planet.
The urgency of that mission is evident. Healthcare is a major contributor to the climate crisis, accounting for nearly 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. If it were a country, it would rank as the fifth largest emitter. In the UK alone, the NHS consumed 11.3 billion kWh in 2020, making it the nation’s largest public energy user.
With an average energy intensity of approximately 74 kWh per square foot, the average hospital now consumes between 2.5-3 times as much energy as a commercial office building. It’s no wonder the NHS has set such ambitious Net Zero 2045 targets.
Even so, the sector faces a critical issue: how do we transform hospitals into energy efficient infrastructure without compromising on 24/7 power availability? If as the growth in demand for healthcare outstrips power capacity, it could turn into a national health emergency; but the upgrade process itself brings with it the possibility of downtime.
The challenges of today
Healthcare facilities face multiple social and technological pressures. According to the Centre for Aging Better, the number of people aged 65 to 79 is predicted to increase by nearly a third, to 10 million, over the next 40 years, while those aged 80 and over will more than double to six million. This demographic shift will bring an increase in care complexity, resulting in a major influx of patients, which will place strains on already limited resources. Not just on hospital beds and medical equipment, but the workforce itself.
From an energy perspective, the implications are profound. Hospitals depend on the constant operation of energy-intensive equipment, ranging from dialysis machines to ventilators, where power is literally a matter of life or death.
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems alone account for around 50% of a hospitals’ energy use. Beyond maintaining stable environmental conditions, these systems help control the spread of infections through the circulation of fresh air. A 2021 study in the Epidemiology & Infection journal directly linked faulty HVAC systems to disease outbreaks. HVAC systems also regulate storage conditions for essential healthcare supplies, such as temperature-sensitive medication or blood bags, that can become unusable if there is a power failure.
The challenge is clear: how can healthcare providers deliver quality care to more patients, with increasingly complex needs, without compromising on power reliability or sustainability?
The transformation from analogue to digital
In July 2025, the UK government launched its 10 Year Health Plan for the NHS, committing to the expansion in digital technology to improve efficiency. We had already been seeing digitalisation with the introduction of the NHS app, and now AI-powered diagnostic and appointment-booking tool Patches.
But digital efficiency also extends to health estates themselves. Smart energy management systems can optimise power usage in real-time, identify inefficiencies and faults, and enable predictive maintenance — critical for reducing consumption without compromising reliability.
But an increase in digital use introduces new vulnerabilities to cyberattacks. Hospitals must find the right balance between technological advancement and cyber security measures. If compromised, the impact on the system could be devastating, potentially leading to incorrect prescriptions or treatments.
Deploying secure energy management tools featuring encryption and strong authentication is critical. Equally, cloud-based energy asset management (EAM) platforms like ABB Ability enable facilities to respond quickly to new security challenges with minimal disruption. That flexibility that is often limited in traditional on-premises infrastructure. For example, KNX Data Secure building automation uses encryption and authentication to protect valuable user data.
More importantly, these digital advancements enable hospitals to modernise at their own place, rather than completing a major overhaul that requires extended downtime. Structured wiring with the KNX standard allows for modular upgrades that target specific rooms, appliances, and systems within the hospital.
Why power outages aren’t an option
For hospitals, power loss can be life-threatening. Everything would be put on pause, cutting vital life support equipment and leaving operating theatres in the dark. Beyond the impact this would have on patients, recent research by ABB suggests a single hospital power outage can cost upwards of £6,000 per minute. However, inefficient energy supply not only presents a huge financial burden, but also damages the trust built between the hospital and patient on the quality of care. It’s just not worth the risk.
Yet many NHS hospitals still depend on the traditional infrastructure: boiler houses in basements which contain outdated and inefficiency heat exchangers, water tanks, pumps, and HVAC systems. These older systems can present inflexible cable setups with unstructured and dense wiring in cabinets and materials, with a tendency to overheat. Electrical faults are difficult to isolate for repair, and potential fire hazards can go undetected. They also require a small team of people to manage them 24/7, all-year-round.
This aging infrastructure must be replaced to meet Net Zero targets and improve efficiency; but how can hospitals safely undertake major upgrades when continuous power is literally a matter of life and death?
Aligning sustainability with energy security
Consequently, healthcare facilities face the challenge of adopting advanced yet energy-intensive technologies while simultaneously enhancing energy efficiency to reduce emission levels. And as dependency on electrified systems grow, energy security is more important than ever.
If hospitals are serious about delivering improved patient care that’s reliable while achieving ambitious Net Zero goals, adopting more energy secure infrastructure with built-in electrification is key. It integrates with the existing systems, allowing for phased upgrades that improve both sustainability and reliability.
Risk-free electrification/modernisation
While transitioning away from fossil fuels has its complexities, the challenge of implementing these solutions without disrupting patient care lies in effective backup generators.
Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems make reliability non-negotiable. Reliable, constant power supply is not only critical to avoid costly downtime and power outages, but to also ensure patient safety. UPS ensures a hospital can never stop running, seamlessly taking over in the event of a power failure for up to 20 minutes while emergency generators are activated. This offers healthcare facilities a large safety margin, preventing disruption in sensitive environments such as intensive care units.
The future of healthcare
Hospital energy infrastructure has traditionally been developed in silos, creating inconstancy and incompatibility across the hospital, making improvements near impossible due to the inflexible nature. Open protocol platforms allow multiple systems within the hospital work in tandem at real time. This means that if one system fails, it doesn’t take down another in the process, providing technicians a window of opportunity to isolate and solve the issue.
An integrated centre for eye care, research, and education, opening in 2027, collaborated closely with ABB Electrification, installing technology in the centre to ensure power continuity and safety. This £1.5 million installation contract delivered a suite of low voltage solutions, including distribution boards, automatic transfer switch units, and circuit breakers. Together, these will provide seamless connectivity to manage critical operations, prevent blackouts and cyberattacks, and protect patients and staff from electrical hazards. They will also enable the retrofitting of future technologies, allowing them to adapt to the customers’ requirements as and when they evolve.
The installation of smart electrification will ensure the new centre will have reliable power management and an energy efficient infrastructure capable of supporting its operations, patients, and staff for many years to come. And it shows that becoming smart is no longer optional: it’s essential to futureproof the infrastructure of health.
