Hospital
Ospedale Niguarda Cà Granda – Milan
Description of the project
A large hospital covering 330,000 square meters for a total of 1,285 beds, which works 24 hours a day 365 days a year, needs a considerable amount of energy.
Cogeneration makes it possible to optimise overall performance and the efficient use of fossil fuels over 80%; this corresponds to lower costs and lower emissions, compared to the separate production of electricity and heat.
For this reason in 2009 at the time of a major renovation the opportunity occurred to adopt modern solutions for a rational use of primary energy and to apply new low cost, environmentally friendly techniques.
What we did
Intergen supplied a cogeneration plant for use at the hospital: a facility built with 4 independent plants, each served by a cogeneration unit equipped with a MMW TCG2032V16 methane gas supplied engine of 4,000 kWe and a heat recovery system for the production of hot water and steam for use by a trigeneration technological center.
A soundproofing system ensures a noise level under 45dB(A), while the devices to trap fumes guarantee an abatement of polluting emission within the levels established by the Region of Lombardy.
The plant is equipped with a supervision system for each machine and for the entire plant, both for controlling from a remote PC and local control using a touch screen located on the control panel, in an easily accessible and protected place.
This system makes it possible to collect and record all of the main data of the cogeneration plant, which can be exported in the most appropriate formats for required energy analyses.
The supervision system can also be used to set the electrical loads creating a detailed daily operating plan aimed at defining the electricity level to import and export from the grid or to create a precise thermal load management logic.
The power of the unit is able to supply 16 MW of electricity and 16 MW of heat in the form of steam and hot water.
A characteristic which sets this plant apart is the possibility for island mode operation – including in load sharing configuration between 2 engines – aimed at ensuring the energy supply of preset utilities, including during outages or abnormalities of the public grid.
A similar structure with three 3×3,916 kWe methane gas cogenerators and heat recovery systems for the production of hot water and steam was built in Milan in 2008 for use at the San Raffaele hospital.
Cogeneration plant performance:
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- gross electricity power: 15,664 kWe
- steam thermal power saturated at 10 bar: 6,848 kW
- hot water thermal power at 90 °C: 9,488 kW
- electricity output: 42.4 %
- thermal output: 43.7 %
- maximum CO content in combustion fumes downstream from emission abatement: 100 mg/Nmc
- maximum NOx content in combustion fumes downstream from emission abatement: 75 mg/Nmc