Penrose Hospital

At Issue

The Penrose Hospital campus in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was 836,000 square feet and growing. As the premier health care provider in the Pikes Peak region of the Rocky Mountains, patient expectations for quality health care were high. The core of the facility's comfort control system, the central chilled water system, was not getting the cooling job done, and a costly chiller addition was being considered.

BGCE's Work

Partnering with the mechanical contractors and facility team leaders, BGCE mapped the entire chilled water system, which served nine buildings, to identify the problems, and recommended simple, yet efficient, solutions.


While the solutions were simple, the implementation was complex. Piping problems were found in every building, but the major bypasses that had to be closed were located in the basement of the 14-story patient tower, where the chilled water for all floors was piped. An eight phase plan was developed and implemented to sequence the piping changes as quickly as possible with minimal hospital disturbance:

• valves were installed in the system bypasses and closed to improve differential pressures and achieve the required flow to the patient tower


• booster pumps were removed to eliminate reverse flows


• coil piping was corrected to reduce discharge temperatures from 80F to 56F

Client Benefits

Up-front savings of $500,000 were realized and annual energy savings were forecasted to be $75,500.