FM December/January 2014

018 | ENERGY EFFICIENCY

St Vincent’s has achieved reductions in energy use of around 2.5 million kilowatt hours per annum with a payback of less than six months.

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ADDRESSING ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN A HOSPITAL CONTEXT At St Vincent’s Health Australia, a number of projects have been rolled out to help drive reductions in lighting and air-conditioning. MATTHEW POWER of St Vincent’s Health Australia shares how the organisation achieved success in reducing energy use in these areas.

he Australian healthcare sector faces major economic and social challenges both in the short term and longer term, which are, in turn, driving greater demand for services and increasing cost pressures1. Major issues such as a rapidly ageing population (the first baby boomers turned 65 in 2012) and the rise of lifestyle diseases such as mature onset diabetes will be felt for decades.

This situation is compounded by increased costs in delivering healthcare, coupled with increasing constraints on funding, whether public or private.

Increasing levels of demand generally, along with greater reliance on and use of technology, particularly diagnostically, have seen steady growth in demand for energy in hospitals2.

With increasing attention paid to healthcare costs generally, greater attention is now being paid to energy use3 within the hospital sector. The lack of attention previously was often due to the cost of energy being a very small component of a hospital’s overall cost/ revenue base, often representing less than 2 percent4.

Indeed, at St Vincent’s Health Australia (SVHA), electricity costs represent about 0.75 percent of overall revenue, despite amounting to millions of dollars.

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XAVIER ENERGY MASS BALANCE (ELECTRICITY)

CATCH 22 Hospitals by their nature are large energy consumers and generally tick all conceivable boxes when defi ning the criteria for an energy intensive occupied space, such as: • high staffi ng (and patient) densities • 24-hour space utilisation requiring continuous supply of services • energy intensive equipment, both in terms of tenant use (for example, medical imaging) and base building services, and • stringent space conditions that are heavily regulated (particularly relating to HVAC, for instance humidity levels and refresh rates).

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Lighting and air-conditioning were found to represent around 70 to 80 percent of total energy consumption in St Vincent’s Health Australia’s larger hospitals due to continuous use and strict performance levels.

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026 | ANNUAL SOFTWARE GUIDE 2014

Facilities management software improves year on year and the benefits of new software capabilities are becoming more prevalent. Building information modelling (BIM), for instance, is being increasingly used to aid facilities management.

Investa has realised the potential of BIM in facilities management and engaged Leighton Properties and Leighton Contractors to deliver Investa’s complete integrated 3D BIM model commercial building at the 567 Collins Street Project. One of the benefits is that the BIM model and data sets will remain independent of any facilities management software BIM system Investa chooses.

Upon the success of the 567 Collins Street Project, this will have the potential to expand Investa’s BIM capable facilities management throughout future and existing buildings in Australia.

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2014

ANNUAL SOFTWARE GUIDE Facility Management is proud to present its Annual Software Guide for 2014, offering readers the most comprehensive overview of software products and suppliers in Australasia’s facilities management sector.

he following pages contain summaries of the best and most relevant software products designed to improve our local built environment, together with statements from the software companies themselves about their corporate and custom services.

Software solutions assist facilities managers to operate and maintain their facilities more efficiently and more cost-effectively. The use of software in the field of facilities management is now well established and the benefits of using software are clear to all stakeholders.

Nowadays there are few day-to-day facilities management tasks that cannot be streamlined through the use of a software solution. The challenges are choosing the right software for a specific facility, and incorporating and integrating the software into day-to-day processes successfully.

Implementing the correct solution for a facility’s needs is key, as a software system is no small investment and adding on required functionalities at a later stage can be difficult and costly. Our software guide makes it easy to compare similar products and functionality to ensure a perfect fit.

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050

| INDUSTRIAL FACILITIES

IN AND OUT

SAFELY AND SWIFTLY How the challenges of accessing items for maintenance on oil and gas rigs can be overcome using rope access, the history of rope access, and its benefits and limitations are disclosed by EDDIE NICOL, director of Independent Maintenance Services.

he driving consideration behind the design of oil and gas platforms is to extract the hydrocarbon, crude oil or natural gas, quickly and cheaply. Unfortunately, this approach often leaves maintenance as a secondary design consideration. The structure and plant aboard most platforms are designed for the conditions they are likely to face – brutal winds, a harsh maritime environment and every other difficult environmental headache found in the middle of the ocean.

Onshore processing facilities are not dissimilar and, being subject to a major safety case under legislation, these facilities are also often in remote and possibly harsh environments. Further complicating matters is scale. Producing millions of litres of refi ned product requires big bits of kit.

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OVERCOMING MAINTENANCE CHALLENGES So, how are these facilities maintained safely?

Common forms of access such as crane and scaffolding are regularly used, but these approaches have their limitations.

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Imagine having to replace a section of pipework below the cellar deck of an oil platform in the Bass Strait, a notoriously cantankerous stretch of water.

The pipe section is under the floor, some 50 feet above the water.

The traditional approach has been to erect suspended scaffold beneath the cellar deck, launched from a nearby stair landing. A team of scaffolders will take several days erecting and suspending the scaffold, ready for the maintenance fitters to access the site and replace the pipeline.

But, the weather is turning. Overnight, the sea state changes from manageable to absolutely dreadful, and the fitters arrive to fi nd the scaffold they were to use is not there, a victim of enormous swell that has literally stripped 90 percent of the scaffold and sent it to the sea floor.

What next? Wait for more scaffold to be erected – an expensive and time-intensive process – or are there alternatives?

Industrial rope access is a safe, expeditious and cost-effective option for problems like those described

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opposite page: Industrial rope access is a safe, expeditious and cost-effective alternative for maintenance on oil and gas rigs. right and below: From an inauspicious beginning in the North Sea, industrial rope access has become the preferred method of access for light industrial maintenance and construction work in many offshore oil and gas rigs.

in the above example. First thought to have been employed on platforms in the North Sea over 25 years ago, rope access was born of a combination of oilfield workers noticing their recreational caving skills and methods, and those used in rigging and steeplejack industries, could be safely applied as a work positioning system in an industrial setting. The cornerstone of the methodology is 100 percent redundancy on all safety systems. Two ropes are always used, providing immediate backup should one rope become severed.

Returning to our example, but using rope access instead of scaffolding, and the problem is solved.

Maintenance fitters trained in rope access methods would rig ropes to structural components of the platform and pass them through penetrations in the cellar deck floor, protecting the ropes as they pass through the floor from all sharp edges. Depending on the size of the pipe section to be replaced, a winch would also be rigged in a similar manner.

Following the development of a rescue plan, cross-trained fitters would then ascend their ropes to the work site and commence the removal and replacement process. No delays waiting for scaffold, and single-source supply is achieved as the same people accessing the site perform the work.

FROM LITTLE THINGS‌ From an inauspicious beginning in the North Sea, industrial rope access has spread rapidly across the globe, and in many offshore oilfields it is the preferred method of access over scaffolding for light industrial maintenance and construction work.

There are several reasons for this growing popularity, not the least of which is that the use of cross-trained personnel and single source supply means fewer people are required to perform the task, which is also completed in a shorter timeframe when access methods are included in the calculation.

Aside from the cost savings through a smaller headcount, this is very attractive for operating companies because the shorter project timeframe equates to a smaller window of exposure to occupational health and safety (OH&S) risks for personnel. Less exposure means fewer accidents,

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