EBME Forums Forums Management Medical Equipment Management Medical device power consumption

Thanks Geoff

Have you any ideas on the knowledge I seek?

Nothing much to add to what was said in the other thread, really.

Has any proper cost-benefit analysis been carried out?

A bit of kit drawing 100 Watts is still going to need 100 Watts whatever voltage is being feed to it.

My own gut feeling is that the whole idea would end up being yet another waste of money.

In my experience these gee-whiz schemes are usually dreamt up by folks looking to make Big Bucks out of clueless "managers" of other people's money. The NHS being a prime target, of course (but not the only one).

Bottom line? Waste of money. Leave as is.

The paper that Bill put a link to made interesting reading, from memory it split equipment into basic types ie heating, lighting, switch mode power supplies etc, running tests on each. The conclusions were that the only area that real savings would be made was in lighting.

We decided against it in the end (yes we might be able to save on consumption but the payback period looked long).

A couple of things to think about are - our Isolators need recalibrating if the mains voltage changes (yes I know! poor design); the voltage does not arrive at the Trust at 230 volts it comes in via a HV transformer which has various tappings. With the assistance of a proactive works department the voltage could be monitored over a reasonable period and the possibility of changing to a more appropriate voltage investigated.

Lee

Interesting idea. Never heard of that being introduced anywhere. Look forward to feedback.