ENERGY STAR Success Story: St. Joseph Hospital

Project Director: Richard C. Armstrong, Jr., Director of Engineering

Partner Since: 1994

Total Committed Square Footage: 492,000

Over the past five years, St. Joseph Hospital faced a challenge shared by healthcare facilities nationwide: the need to maintain total energy costs at manageable levels despite rising utility prices and increased utilization of hospital facilities.

St. Joseph Hospital, a 309-bed hospital in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and member of the Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) - the largest notfor- profit health system in the country, joined ENERGY STAR with the goal of stabilizing its energy costs.

After the successful completion of a small pilot project, St. Joseph Hospital completed a hospital-wide study and upgraded nearly 6,500 lighting fixtures with energy-efficient lights. Having met with remarkable success in its own facilities, St. Joseph Hospital recommended ENERGY STAR to five other CHI-East Region hospitals. By June 1996, four of the five additional facilities successfully completed upgrades. Cumulatively, the five CHI-East hospitals are saving more than $1 million in annual energy costs.

Since embarking on this energy-efficiency initiative, St. Joseph Hospital has doubled its laundry service, opened Delp Pavilion, a 55,000 sq. ft. out-patient/surgical facility, and added new services in several renovated areas of the hospital, while maintaining virtually flat energy costs over the past five years. In recognition of the hospital's achievement, EPA honored St. Joseph Hospital as the 1998 ENERGY STAR Hospital Partner of the Year.

Project Costs

Total Expenditures: $ 390,225

Dollars Per Square Foot: $ .88

Total Square Footage Upgraded: 442,800

Cost Savings

Annual Dollar Savings: $ 175,643

Dollar Savings Per Square Foot: $ 0.86

Internal Rate of Return (IRR): 47.6 %

Energy Savings

kWh Savings: 2.9 million

Pollution Prevention

Carbon Dioxide (lbs): 4.6 million

Equivalent Cars*: 457

* Carbon dioxide reduction is equivalent to removing 457 cars from the road.