HOSMAC, one of India’s leading hospital consulting firms, has developed the Hospital Energy Analysis Tool (HEAT), a digital tool designed to support energy-conscious hospital planning and design. Bringing together active and passive energy modelling, HEAT enables healthcare planners and architects to assess a hospital’s energy requirements at an early stage and explore design strategies to improve energy performance and manage consumption-related costs.
Hospitals are among the most energy-intensive building types, given their round-the-clock operations, extensive cooling and ventilation requirements, and dependence on sophisticated medical equipment. According to the National Hospital Energy Consumption Survey, conducted under the aegis of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, hospitals accounted for approximately 9% of India’s commercial electricity consumption in FY 2019–20, consuming an estimated 9.7 billion units of electricity annually. As healthcare infrastructure continues to expand and become more complex in the wake of prevalent climate-induced health risk, integrating energy efficiency into hospital feasibility, space planning and building design is increasingly critical to controlling long-term operating costs and reducing environmental impact.
“A hospital’s energy footprint is shaped long before its doors open. With HEAT, we want to bring energy analysis during the start of hospital planning. By combining active and passive energy modelling, the tool aims to empower architects and healthcare planners to make smarter, data-driven decisions that balance clinical functionality, operational efficiency and environmental responsibility. The goal is to help create hospitals that are not only equipped to deliver quality healthcare, but are also more resource-efficient and financially sustainable in the long run,” said Ishan Desai, Computational Architect, HOSMAC.
The Space Program Designer is an active energy modelling tool built around a database of disease management groups and their associated hospital departments, which provides a granular program overview at the early design stage. For general multi-specialty hospitals, the tool maps more than 800 rooms across over 40 hospital departments. Its questionnaire-based interface allows users to provide targeted inputs and generate a comprehensive hospital program within minutes. Based on HOSMAC’s years of experience in building hospitals, the tool generates an early-stage feasibility assessment of hospital space requirements as well as associated cooling needs in the Indian context.
Complementing this, the Building Mass-Volume Explorer is a passive energy modelling tool built on a library of hospital footprints. Using a genetic evolutionary algorithm, it evaluates different orientations of a building footprint against the ground coverage (GC) and built-up area (BUA) requirements of a given plot. An integrated solar irradiation analysis then identifies building configurations that perform better during peak-load hours, helping architects understand how building form and orientation can influence heat gain and energy requirements.
This unique tool also highlights the potential cost savings associated with reducing incident heat through ecologically informed design strategies. Depending on the site profile, these savings can range from 30% to 50%, according to the tool’s estimates. By offering an early-stage assessment of building massing and orientation, the Building Mass-Volume Explorer provides architects and planners with a starting point for incorporating passive design strategies into large, complex healthcare projects. Thus, bringing together active & passive aspects of energy modelling.
The development of HEAT follows HOSMAC’s recent launch of the Urban Health Data Platform (UHDP), a research-driven digital tool designed to map healthcare facilities and provide insights into healthcare infrastructure across India. Together, these initiatives reflect HOSMAC’s growing focus on leveraging research, data analytics and computational technologies to support more informed, efficient and sustainable healthcare infrastructure planning.