The research project Green Hospital Energy Twin, known as GreenHET, has begun with the participation of Formitas AG, which is responsible for developing and operating the project’s digital platform. The project is scheduled to run from January 2026 through December 2028 as part of the North Rhine-Westphalia innovation competition Energie.IN.NRW and aims to improve energy efficiency in hospital operations through the development of a digital energy twin .
GreenHET focuses on the creation of a digital model that captures, evaluates, and simulates hospital energy consumption in order to support more efficient operational processes. The project is funded by the EFRE/JTF program of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with consortium leadership held by the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML. A kickoff meeting of the consortium partners took place in Dortmund in early February and defined strategic, organizational, and technical objectives for the project’s implementation.
At the core of the initiative is the development of a digital energy twin that measures and monitors sustainability indicators in hospitals in near real time. Energy consumption data, including electricity, heating, cooling, and compressed air, are collected via sensors and transmitted to a cloud-based system for evaluation and simulation. The pilot application is being carried out at St. Bernhard Hospital in Kamp-Lintfort, operated by the Franziskus Foundation, where recommendations for reducing energy use and emissions are to be derived from the digital analyses.
Formitas plays a central role through the creation and further development of the building information modeling framework that underpins the digital energy twin. The BIM model represents the hospital’s structural and technical building systems and provides visualizations of energy-relevant components. In addition, process models are used to analyze time-series consumption data and support planning of energy efficiency measures. Alongside Fraunhofer IML, Formitas cooperates with FACT GmbH on process analysis, sensor integration, edge-cloud development, pilot operation, evaluation, dissemination, and project administration.
The project also outlines plans for the application of research results beyond the pilot phase. Formitas intends to integrate the outcomes into its digital building models and expand its BIM and common data environment portfolio, as well as to use its proprietary platform Konektor for visualization and further utilization of the data. According to the project description, this approach is intended to enable both scientific use and practical application of the findings in the healthcare sector.
GreenHET is embedded in the broader framework of the Energie.IN.NRW innovation competition, which supports collaboration between industry and research institutions to develop climate- and environmentally compatible solutions. Within the healthcare sector, the program targets the identification and use of industrial energy efficiency and flexibility potential. The project is funded under the EFRE/JTF program with Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH acting as project sponsor, while additional consortium partners include FACT GmbH as a healthcare sector multiplier and Encadi GmbH, which supports FACT in the area of edge-cloud infrastructure .
Photo Fraunhofer IML, Frederic Eynck
