Mayo Clinic – Stuart Block – 2016

Goals 

Mayo Clinic, a not-for-profit medical group practice, made a commitment to reduce the energy use intensity of its owned real estate 20% by 2020 from a 2010 baseline year. EDF Climate Corps fellow Stuart Block was enlisted to aid in the development of a Strategic Energy Management Plan that identifies additional areas of opportunity for reducing energy use, growing staff participation in energy management program activities and obtaining recognition from national associations focused on energy management.

Solutions

After conducting interviews and touring the campus, Stuart realized that Mayo Clinic had already evaluated and implemented several projects in specific areas of energy management, resulting in a 13.7% reduction in energy use intensity from the 2010 baseline year. However, he recognized a number of other areas of opportunity, such as LED lighting retrofits, operating room HVAC setpoints, communications, and employee engagement.

Stuart and his supervisor met with manufacturers of LED T8 lamps to determine optimal solutions and held several internal meetings for evaluating potential implementation barriers. He coordinated with Mayo Clinic’s building automation team to analyze current operating room air exchange setpoints and determine existing capabilities for maintaining required pressure relationships aligned with industry air exchange setpoints standards. Stuart then connected with the Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Alliance and healthcare-industry alliance members to discuss successful employee engagement strategies, designed to increase staff participation in energy conservation efforts and recommend optimal approaches for Mayo Clinic’s organizational structure.

Potential Impact

The near term energy efficiency projects identified in the plan can save Mayo Clinic more than $800,000 annually, representing an additional 1.8% reduction in energy use intensity from the 2010 baseline year. When combined with employee engagement recommendations, Mayo Clinic should be not only able to achieve its reduction goals, but also expand its energy management program to support larger initiatives within its Rochester, Minnesota facilities.