Reinier de Graaf Hospital adapts to changing requirements

The Reinier de Graaf Hospital in Delft was designed to enable the hospital to keep pace with changing requirements, without necessitating major architectural adjustments. The extra investments required by the hospital are much lower than the costs of a refurbishment over 5 or 10 years, is the idea.

Futureproof

Flexibility, sustainability and reliability were key to the design and construction, for good reason. Ronald van Lier (project manager Bouwbureau at the Reinier de Graaf Hospital): "Reliability is obviously crucial in a hospital. Patients, employees and visitors must always be able to totally rely on the building and the operation of the medical installations." 

"That also means that energy saving is difficult in a hospital. Because you always need to ensure a good energy supply. Saving energy is not the top priority - that's caring for and curing patients. However, that doesn't mean that we can't achieve sustainability. Sustainability also involves giving the building a longer life due the flexibility in the layout. Because the healthcare landscape is constantly changing. New treatment methods and equipment are being developed. Because our building is futureproof and areas can be easily adapted, we can keep pace with those changes."

Reliable and sustainable

With the use of materials, we consider the cradle-to-cradle philosophy, and the energy management is organised in such a way that the hospital is mainly dependent on electricity. The heating and cooling are supplied by the CHP system in combination with the heat pump. The Reinier de Graaf also uses the Pharmafilter, a system which treats wastewater. This reduces hospital waste, the volume of contaminated transport and carbon emissions.

The control technology is based on Deerns specification, implemented by Coneco and Kuijpers. Coneco is now responsible for the maintenance. Ron Eversteyn from Coneco mainly remembers the construction for its tight planning. "The planning period was very short for such an extensive project. To achieve that, lots of construction activity was going on at the same time. That was a challenge, but it was ultimately successful."

Individual control of climate and sun blinds

The focus on reliability, flexibility and sustainability was the reason why Reiner de Graaf chose Priva. Ronald van Lier: "Priva is very reliable, we know that from experience. And that's important. We wanted to apply proven technology, not experiments. And Priva is also very flexible - adaptable."

So, Reinier de Graaf chose local re-adjustment units, which make it possible to individually control the climate and the sun blinds with a room control unit. Besides the night setting, during the day the sun blinds automatically adjust via a smart-controlled central system, depending on the position of the wall to the sun.

User-friendly system

Coneco works exclusively with Priva, but this was certainly not a standard project. Ron Eversteyn: "Programming a Priva controller is not complicated - it's quite easy to master. With a CHP installation, it is rather more complex due to the library of data that is then required. But even then, Priva is a very user-friendly system. And if problems do arise, Priva is always there to help, even if it may not be Priva's problem."

Energy monitoring and reporting

The Reinier de Graaf Hospital is now using Priva energy monitoring and associated reporting with the help of Erbis.

"Our hospital is a very intensively measured building," says Ronald van Lier. "Measuring is knowledge", we always say, and that's possible with Priva. It helps us make the building more efficient and improve the layout for the processes in the building. And it means we can achieve our sustainability goals. Priva also contributed ideas from the design phase with the design of the technical installations. They think with us and are very service oriented. Also during usage. It's also nice that Priva customers regularly visit to see how it works here. We are a real example.”