How New Microgrid Designs Help Hospitals Increase Resilience, Cut Costs, and Improve Sustainability

As hospital administrators reevaluate their facilities’ resilience against grid instability, many also face budgetary and environmental pressures. Microgrid designs and technology is increasingly being used to further enhance uptime, while reducing energy spend and minimizing a facility’s carbon footprint.

Generator failures at hospitals have made the news in recent years, including failures during U.S. hurricanes Katrina, Irene, and Sandy. This has often resulted in large evacuations of patients. In a few cases, lives were put at risk.

Reevaluating the reliability of backup power systems is not the only challenge facing hospitals today. In their 2019 outlook for the healthcare industry, Deloitte notes, “Global health care expenditures are expected to continue to rise as spending is projected to increase at an annual rate of 5.4% between 2017-2022.”

Two of the five key factors impacting the financial performance are listed as “increased use of exponential technologies” and “the demand for expanded care delivery sites.”

The newest of these solutions integrate advanced energy analytics to more intelligently manage energy assets, from gensets and CHP, to renewables and loads.

Though the healthcare industry worldwide faces a number of business and technical challenges, three energy-related concerns loom large for administrators: resilience, costs, and sustainability. How can new microgrid designs help?