Projects
Swedish Zero Carbon District Energy System
2 Million Sqft
Seattle, Wa
Commenced in 2021
Completion in 2028
“We are extremely proud to partner with Creative Energy to implement innovative solutions that will allow us to reduce the amount of energy and water we use to heat and cool our hospitals. We intend to eliminate nearly 9,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually at the Swedish First Hill campus alone, which is the equivalent of removing approximately 1,800 cars from the road each year.”
Mike Denney, Chief Real Estate Officer, Swedish Health Services
The Project
Creative Energy has partnered with Swedish Health Services to develop a zero carbon district energy system that puts hospital waste heat to productive use by sharing its excess waste heat or coolth and distributing it to surrounding buildings through an ambient distribution network. Thus, enabling the Swedish First Hill campus to fully eliminate Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions before 2030.
Waste heat from cooling serves the real-time heating needs of the hospital. Artificial cooling loads are created by air-conditioning warm hospital exhaust air (i.e., “false cooling”), thereby recapturing additional energy from the waste heat. Large thermal energy storage tanks are used to decouple the coincident heat demand from the availability of waste heat, improving overall efficiency and allowing the waste heat to be stored for later use by the hospital or exported offsite. The legacy natural gas-fired steam heating system will be removed, and the new district energy system will be organized into nodes—smaller plants located close to the buildings they serve. These nodes are interconnected to share energy across the campus and provide redundancy. Small-scale electric-generated point-of-use steam will be used for sterilization and humidification. The district energy system will also include a large mechanical and electrical upgrade on the campus, improving resiliency and ensuring uninterrupted business continuity.
Potential
Swedish First Hill will serve as the anchor to establish the zero carbon district energy system which is expected to grow beyond the hospital campus through an ambient temperature distribution network, to provide a zero carbon platform to all of First Hill.
















