The current level of consumption is crippling electric generators across the region, said Riad M Mahfouz, Managing Consultant, Vital Quandro, who stressed that increasing efficiency means drawing less power, which will make a big difference to the savings in terms of operational cost. Mahfouz added it is for this reason that hospitals, which consume the most density of power from the production of any grid, must continue to make energy efficiency their first priority as a way to reduce cost and in the move towards sustainability.

“We are unable to sustain the facilities as they are run right now,” he said, in support of the sustainability agenda across the region. “We have to look at ways to conserving energy and reducing waste – this is where the HVAC part can come in.”

Mahfouz also touched on the difficulty of promoting energy-efficient practices in the region. “[In this part of the world] hospitals are government-owned,” he said. “They don’t look at their electric bill, because the government pays it, anyways. So, the operators and directors don’t care about the bill. So, if you tell them, ‘I’m going to save you 200,000 riyals per month’, they ask, ‘Why?’ It’s not going to come to their pocket, so they don’t realise the savings. This is one of the main problems.”