Measurement of embodied carbon and energy of HVAC facilities in healthcare centers

Abstract

The design of a sustainable building should include a reduction of its energy consumption, by considering the embodied energy and CO2 emissions generated during material manufacturing, transport and construction processes. A Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) facility in buildings consumes large amounts of energy. The aim of this work is to quantify the embodied carbon and energy of HVAC systems installed in healthcare centers. For this purpose, 6 healthcare centers in the region of Extremadura (Spain) -projected between 2006 and 2009 and built between 2007 and 2010- were analyzed. The results show that the embodied carbon -considering HVAC installations lifetime estimated at 15 years-is equivalent to the CO2 emitted for 2.3 years in the operation phase, and that the embodied energy is approximately 2.65 times the amount used in one year during that phase. Particularly, the average embodied carbon and energy is 48.95 kg of CO2 and 587.32 MJ per m2, respectively, discarding the environmental impact of refrigerant gases. Additionally, different reference indicators are proposed to calculate both parameters according to different structural variables of a given healthcare center, including number of users, number of staff, HVAC installation costs, electrical power and average annual energy consumption.