In emergencies, hospitals are relying on microgrids

Hospitals are inherently risk-averse—and these days, relying on the grid can be risky. That’s why a majority of hospitals and medical centers have backup generators powered by diesel or natural gas that can fuel critical infrastructure in the event of a power outage. But as energy costs rise and larger health systems report their emissions, many hospitals are turning to microgrids as a way to provide electrical resilience and generate on-site energy.

A microgrid is a small energy network made up of energy-generating technologies, like solar panels or hydrogen-powered fuel cells, and energy storage technologies, such as batteries. Most microgrids supply power to specific buildings or areas, and some can provide power to the electrical grid if needed. In the case of hospitals, some medical systems can run entirely on their microgrid for a specific interval of time, while others use one to supplement backup power from generators.

But no matter how the microgrid functions, it requires an immense amount of planning to tailor it to a hospital’s needs and cover the cost—which can range from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

“You have to be really specific about what you want to serve, and then how are you curtailing those loads?” Matt Jones, a principal at construction engineering company PAE Consulting Engineers, told Tech Brew. “You might not put it in charge of the most sensitive areas, like operating rooms.”

That’s because a microgrid is less energy dense than a diesel generator. But unlike a diesel generator, microgrids fueled by renewables can produce their own power without needing fuel deliveries.

“[A diesel generator is] not covering everything in the hospital. It’s going to cover a select part, a selection of critical loads in the hospital,” Jones said. “The idea of supplementing that with a microgrid is pretty appealing just from a standpoint of resilience.”

Microgrid successes: Healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente, which owns and operates 40 hospitals and over 600 medical office buildings across the US, has microgrids at a handful of its California locations. The system’s Ontario, California, hospital hosts its largest microgrid with on-site solar, a fuel cell system, and batteries—which can supply the entire electrical load of the hospital for a limited amount of time. And though the hospital does have a diesel generator for backup power, the microgrid would primarily supply power during an outage.

“If the power goes out, the generators will turn on. But that’s just to stabilize the voltage, and then they’ll ramp down while the microgrid system ramps up,” Kaiser Permanente’s national director for energy and utilities, Seth Baruch, told Tech Brew. “What that means is essentially the microgrid is the first line of defense, and the diesel generators are the backups.”

And Kaiser Permanente’s changing of the guard from generator to microgrid has other advantages. Baruch said it’s more useful than a generator, “which sits there 99.9% of the time doing nothing,” because the solar power goes straight into the facility. Additionally, microgrids at the healthcare system’s locations have brought down energy prices and help them comply with state air quality regulations—especially in Richmond, California, where Kaiser Permanente also runs a hospital with a microgrid.

“It was noted in Richmond, an area which has a lot of oil and gas infrastructure, that not using diesel generators when possible directly contributes to lower air pollution,” Baruch said. “And that directly impacts the health of the members in those communities.”

To help cover the high cost of microgrids that can help power a hospital, there are myriad incentives from utilities and in the form of grants. Kaiser Permanente funded the Ontario microgrid via a state grant from the California Energy Commission. But hospitals that relied on federal money to fund their microgrids tell a different story.

Funding setbacks: Klickitat Valley Health, a public hospital, was going to fund a microgrid in part through a grant from Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program; the Goldendale, Washington, hospital was about to start construction when the Trump administration canceled it.

Klickitat had planned to build a solar- and battery-powered microgrid that could fuel the entire medical facility and a school district a block away in the event of an outage. The microgrid would have worked in conjunction with the hospital’s existing diesel generator and fuel cell.

“In the era of the Inflation Reduction Act and post-Covid, it really wasn’t that hard as a rural hospital to make a case for these projects,” Jonathan Lewis, Klickitat Valley Health’s director of support services, told Tech Brew. “Going forward federally, we’re looking at pivoting.”

Lewis said that pivot includes focusing on the clean energy technologies that the “One Big Beautiful Bill” still provides tax credits for, like batteries, ground source heat pumps, and fuel cells.

For now, though, the hospital will be using a grant it received from the Washington State Department of Commerce to build on-site solar car ports and install a ground source heat pump that Lewis said will reduce natural gas usage by over 90%.

“[We’re] hoping to be able to make the case to other rural communities that this is something we should really be pursuing,” Lewis said. “Not just looking at their infrastructure as boring infrastructure, but part of a bigger picture of sustainability as far as keeping the doors open…and providing services to their community in times of crisis.”