Energy Applications and Studies for Healthcare Facilities- A Systematic Review

Abstract

Healthcare facilities are one of the main buildings that have great energy consumption. This situation reveals the need for good energy planning and management based on the principles of energy efficiency as well as cost-effectiveness for these facilities. In this context, a literature review, between 2006 and 2018, on energy applications realized for healthcare facilities, such as energy planning, energy management, energy efficiency, selection of alternative energy technologies, using of different energy sources, energy renovation/refurbishment activities have been executed. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) method was used, where research questions and searching stages were defined. This review study has been conducted on energy and healthcare relevant keywords in the Scopus database. After a thorough analysis of the papers retrieved from the Scopus database, a total of 176 primary articles has been categorized according to their relations with energy efficiency, energy planning, and energy management. In each category, major research issues, findings, and important aspects have been analyzed and reported. With this analyzing, developments in the existing literature have been put forth and potential areas for future research have been suggested. Findings pointed out that energy-related studies for healthcare facilities are between trending topics. For ensuring minimum cost and maximum utility for energy, the articles using the solution methods of operations research and engineering economics regarding alternative energy applications are especially popular. As a solution method for energy problems, Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) is widely used in 20 studies. On the other hand, cogeneration and trigeneration applications, which minimize energy costs and waste energy and are very suitable for large buildings, are the most frequently studied alternative energy applications with 83 articles.