KAISER HOSPITALS SHINE SUN

Kaiser Permanente Hospital Goes Live With Solar Power
10 January 2011 (PR-USA)

"Kaiser Permanente's Santa Clara Medical Center has gone live with solar power, becoming one of the country's first major medical centers to receive a significant amount of its energy from the sun…

"Kaiser Permanente agreed in March [through power purchase agreements with Recurrent Energy] to install solar power systems at 15 of its California facilities — deploying a total 15 megawatts of solar energy — by the end of 2011…[Recurrent Energy, a solar project developer and generating company, will own and operate all of the solar power systems. Kaiser Permanente will retain the Renewable Energy Credits]…"

Artist's rendering of the Santa Clara installation. (click to enlarge)

"Solar panels at Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara will produce 8.5 percent of the power used at the medical center — or enough to provide electricity for 136 homes for one year…[They represent] the first step in a comprehensive plan to use onsite renewable energy sources to power Kaiser Permanente's buildings nationwide…

"…The 15 megawatts of solar power will produce an average of 10 percent of the electricity at each of the facilities, which also include the Vallejo Medical Center in Northern California, and medical offices in Lancaster and La Mesa in Southern California…This is enough to provide electricity for about 1,900 homes a year…"

Healthcare lags other sectors in use of New Energy and Kaiser wants to change that. (click to enlarge)

"Through its green building efforts, Kaiser Permanente…[saves] more than $10 million per year through energy conservation strategies…[by] reducing its use of fossil fuels and slowing energy growth over the next 10 years…[It will also] use sustainable design and construction practices to complete roughly 6.7 million square feet of new construction in the next seven years…[and it has eliminated] the purchase and disposal of 40 tons of harmful chemicals.

"Kaiser Permanente first used solar power when it opened one of the country's "greenest" hospitals in Modesto, Calif., in 2008. That hospital's solar-panel array generates enough electricity to power 25 homes annually."