Sharp Coronado Earns ENERGY STAR Award

Many consumers are familiar with the bright yellow ENERGY STAR labels affixed to washers, dryers and refrigerators that identify the most environmentally friendly appliances on the market. What many don't realize is that a similar scoring system is also in place for commercial buildings and public facilities, and that in November 2010, Sharp Coronado Hospital earned its own label as one of the most energy-efficient hospitals in the nation.

The distinction is based on Sharp Coronado's gas and electric usage over a 12-month period compared with other similarly sized health care facilities across the United States. Each month, participating entities submit energy data to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the organization that administers the ENERGY STAR program, and those measurements are weighed against individual factors like operating conditions, weather, square footage and other inputs that translate into a score from 1 to 100. Once a facility ranks higher than 75 percent of its peers, it earns the ENERGY STAR distinction and a plaque for the building.

This is the second time that Sharp Coronado has earned the award (the first time was in 2007), and Sharp Coronado's director of engineering, Mark Nelson, said that the primary reason for the ranking was a lighting retrofit upgrade project and the replacement of an aging chiller unit in July that produces chilled water for the hospital's air-conditioning system. By installing a new, more efficient machine, Nelson said that the facility is saving significantly more energy and thousands of dollars in utility costs every month.

"Tracking your energy usage through the ENERGY STAR program is a great way to look at your carbon footprint and see what impact you have on your environment," Nelson said, adding that the trend of implementing green building practices has become less a matter of principle and more a matter of necessity in recent years, and the effect is positive on many levels.

"In the big picture, if you reduce the amount of money your business is paying for overhead expenses, like utilities and maintenance, you will have more money for things that directly benefit patient care and staff, like state-of-the-art equipment and higher salaries," Nelson said.

There are currently only three hospitals with an ENERGY STAR award in California, and two are Sharp entities. Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center also earned the award in 2009 and 2010. In 2010, only 33 hospitals achieved the ENERGY STAR rating nationally.