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Henry Ford Health System West Bloomfield Hospital Energy Center
Though few visitors to Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital will see the compact Energy Center at the far end of the campus, the all-new facility is essential to the hospital’s healing mission. This highly efficient, environmentally friendly system provides electrical power, heating and cooling, and clean steam for humidification and sterilization to both the existing facility (the Henry Ford Medical Center West Bloomfield) and the new hospital. The old system was not only situated in the middle of the new hospital site but it provided only enough power for 250,000 square feet of building space – whereas the new campus would require energy for one million square feet, plus more to spare for future expansion. So the new energy center would have to be built first, before construction could start on the new hospital. more...
Kahn architects located the energy center along the edge of the campus’s 200-foot setback, close to a residential development. That meant its two generators—each as big as a locomotive—would need to be exceptionally quiet. Normally, the equipment would be exposed so it could be air-cooled. But that meant noise. So the architects sealed the generators in airtight chambers, with cooling handled by a closed-loop refrigeration system. As a result, the system is barely audible, even nearby. The center also houses four fire-tube boilers; four large refrigeration machines to supply the campus with chilled air; duplex water softeners to provide water to the clean steam systems; and sophisticated technology enabling operators to control the system remotely while monitoring interactive color graphic display screens. The energy center was completed in 2007 – on an accelerated schedule – and construction of the new hospital began.
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