A handful of stimulus money meant to spur energy efficiency hasfound its way to Brookhaven’s hospital, which plans to install somenew gear that will cut way down on its power bill.

Ronnie Killingsworth, the facilities director at King’s DaughtersMedical Center, said the hospital would use a $270,000 grant handeddown from the federal government to install a new plate and frameheat exchanger, technology that will allow the hospital to operateits air-conditioning system more efficiently and cheaply duringcooler months.

“It’s like a big radiator. It takes outside air, when thetemperature is around 45 degrees or so, and uses that outsidetemperature to chill our water instead of having to run a bigchiller,” he said. “We can actually turn the chillers off when thetemperature is right.”

The grant is part of the stimulus-funded State Energy Program andwas administered through the Mississippi DevelopmentAuthority.

More than $5.3 million in grants were handed out during the lastSEP funding round, and KDMC was the only hospital in the state tomake the cut. The hospital paid matching funds of 25 percent, or$67,000.

It shouldn’t be long before the expense pays for itself. Hospitalnumber-crunchers expect the new heat exchanger will save about$50,000 in energy costs by relaxing the burden on the airchillers.

“Those chillers are our biggest users of electricity in the wholehospital,” Killingsworth said. “Your house has a four-ton AC unit,I have two 350-ton units. Right now we’re using both of them wideopen.”

Killingsworth said work is expected to start in August and willtake three to four months to complete.

KDMC Chief Executive Officer Alvin Hoover said the grant project isone step in the hospital’s continuing effort to renovate the entirefacility. A two-year, $14 million project that saw the installationof a new emergency room, intensive care unit and othermodernization programs officially ended earlier this year, andsince the hospital has remodeled its labor and delivery program,rebuilt its fitness and therapy centers and more.

“We’ve had a great project to build the new ER and ICU, renovatingthe old hospital, but there’s still parts that need to be upgradedand updated,” Hoover said.

Additionally, Hoover said the hospital plans to relocate itsnext-door Quick Care Clinic to Brookway Boulevard between Wal-Martand Super D. The plan to move the clinic – which serves almost likea backup doctor’s office when a patient’s normal physician isunavailable – is an old one, but was sidelined by the hospital’slarge renovation. The move should begin by September.

“That move will improve access for the public,” Hoover said. “Ourclinic over here is kind of small. We’re going to be recruitingsome family practice physicians over the next couple of years, andthis will to give us some space to put people in.”