UCI Health gives sneak peek at all-electric hospital set to open in 2025

Before plans were developed for an acute medical center at UC Irvine in 2019, the team behind it already knew they wanted to make the new hospital all-electric, according to Joe Brothman, facilities and general services director for UCI Health.

“We have robust sustainability and energy conservation goals that both UCI Health and the University of California system has established. We’re trying to meet our own established goals and be a progressive organization,” Brothman said. “As a whole, hospitals and healthcare is a very large contributor as an aggregate to greenhouse gas emissions as our operations are very energy intensive.

“Operating rooms and medical facilities themselves, due to the their regulatory requirements, are usually operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, “ he continued. “They use a lot of energy and resources and, as an industry, we need to recognize that and find ways to reduce that, as we are an industry in the business of healing people.

“If our operations are contributing to negative health externalities, especially disproportionately in underserved populations that have historically had negative health effects because of energy, we’re not fulfilling our mission.”

The CUP, Central Utility Plant, at the acute care hospital for the UCI Health–Irvine medical campus, will use state-of-the art “chillers” for cooling and heating the structure. No natural gas will be used, as electric and solar power will supply all energy needs for the hospital.

(Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer)

The 144-bed hospital, which broke ground in November 2021, will be part of a $1.3-billion medical complex for the university. The university said it is likely the first all-electric center of its kind in the country.

The UCI Health–Irvine medical campus is expected to also include an outpatient center for advanced care, a center for children’s health and the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and Ambulatory Care building with the advanced care center expected to be the first of the buildings to come online as early as next spring. This will be the second major medical campus in the UC Irvine system, the first having been established in Orange.

In a statement released on the groundbreaking for the medical complex, UCI Health chief executive officer Chad Lefteris described the UCI Health–Irvine medical campus as “building the next chapter of healthcare in Orange County.

“The new UCI Medical Center-Irvine will be a full-service academic medical complex, bringing a broad range of the most advanced healthcare services to coastal and southern Orange County, including access to the hundreds of clinical trials underway at UCI Health,” stated Lefteris.

Members of the media Friday were given the opportunity to see inside the 350,000-square-foot center, which is expected to begin operations in 2025.

The state-of-the art “chillers” on the CUP, Central Utility Plant, will be used for cooling the acute care hospital at the UCI Health–Irvine medical campus.

(Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer)

With regard to its internal infrastructure, Brothman said the hospital is very different than the one in Orange, which is built more traditionally. The hospital and the ambulatory care center will be powered by an Essential Utilities plant that does not rely on carbon combustion or natural gas.

Brothman noted that the hospital will have diesel generators as back-ups in the event of a power failure, but the goal is for day-to-day operations to be completely electric.

“Since our health system is able to purchase electricity on the open market, we procure 100% sustainably produced electricity. The operations at our Irvine campus will be some of the greenest energy portfolio-wise that we are aware of, especially for an academic medical center of this size and complexity,” Brothman said.

He added the central utilities will be utilizing a “smattering” of different technology that will simultaneously produce chilled water and hot water to provide heating and cooling for the building, while also producing steam for humidification and cleaning. That is typically done with a large, central boiler, but Brothman said the hospital will utilize multiple small steam boilers at the point of use.

Construction crews work Friday on the UCI Health–Irvine medical campus.

(Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer)

“It won’t be one piped steam line running around our campus; so that means that during an earthquake or construction, there isn’t a risk of rupturing a steam line and rendering our heating, cooling or cleaning unable to do that critical function,” he said, describing the system as having built-in resilience. “When every other building isn’t standing, it’s typically during a major disaster.”

What’s more, from a purely financial perspective, changing to electric will allow the hospital to be unaffected by any potential change in cost for natural gas.

“It’s a way for us to hedge our bets ... we’re not beholden to those energy prices that are totally out of our control. Overall, for our patients and people we care for, we’re going to try and reduce that cost as much as possible,” Brothman said. “We see in the future that we can’t control those factors out of our control like natural gas prices, but we can choose to use electricity and purchase power on the open market.”

While full electrification of their other carbon-using facilities is still far away, Brothman said there is a team with UCI Health that is actively seeking out opportunities for the switch at existing buildings, including their Orange campus.

Construction crews work on the hospital for the UCI Health–Irvine medical campus on Friday.

(Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer)