Investigating Energy Efficiency and Analyzing Current Energy Consumption Levels: Creating a Sample Savings Potential and Predicting Future Electricity Consumption

Energy efficiency is a top priority among sustainability goals and offers significant economic and environmental benefits. Due to diverse applications and varying energy consumption profiles, many facilities and businesses offer suitable environments for implementing efficiency studies. The healthcare sector, due to its need for continuous service, is another area that can be examined in terms of high energy consumption. This paper has examined the electricity and natural gas usage of a healthcare clinic in Kırklareli, presented the current energy consumption situation, and developed feasible improvement suggestions to increase energy efficiency. Within this scope, energy consumption calculations have been made by evaluating the lighting infrastructure, air conditioning systems, and heating equipment in the clinic. Energy intensity of the clinic has been perused by analyzing the obtained data through indicators of annual energy consumption and ton equivalent petroleum (TEP). As a result of the analyses, an exemplary model for energy management in clinics has been presented. The assessments revealed that natural gas and electricity together constitute a dominant share of total energy consumption. It was shown that implementing scenarios consistent with the data can lead to a decrease in annual energy consumption and a reduction in carbon emissions. Finally, an artificial neural network (ANN) based model has been created to predict future energy demand. The effectiveness of energy applications in small scale healthcare institutions has been highlighted.