A Westside hospital is the first major user of electricity on Kaua‘i in recent times with plans to generate their own power. The plan is hoped to be in place as early as January.
Officials at the Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital and the West Kauai Medical Center in Waimea are making plans to install co-generation equipment next month and go “off the grid” by January or February, said Miles Takaaze, spokesman for the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation that operates KVMH, Kapa‘a’s Mahelona Medical Center and nine other rural hospitals across the state.
In 1977 Wilcox Memorial Hospital responded to the oil crisis of that decade with plans to become the first hospital in the nation to be energy self-sufficient by installing banks of solar panels in an attempt to become energy-self sufficient. The panels were later removed. A methane waste-to fuel plant was also planned, according to Kaua‘i author Pat Griffin’s book “Wilcox Memorial Hospital in the Twentieth Century.”
A combination of diesel-power generators providing electricity, and a system to convert engine heat into hot water and use the engine heat to also power a system to cool water for air-conditioning systems, will allow hospital officials to stop buying power from Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative early in the new year, he said.
KVMH, and Kona Community Hospital and Hilo Medical Center, both on the Big Island, are the first three HHSC facilities to get off the grid, he said.
Heat and power systems at the three medical facilities, run by diesel fuel, generate electricity. The heat from engines generates hot water and drives absorption chillers, which chill water used for air conditioning, Takaaze explained.
Combined, the savings to the three facilities by going off the grid will be 12.7 million kilowatt hours of electricity, 85,000 gallons of propane gas, and 5.9 million gallons of water each year.
Officials with HHSC, which manages 11 rural state hospitals statewide, have won a national award for energy savings.
HHSC’s energy-efficiency moves were named winner of the Best Healthcare Project by Energy News User News during its 2003 Energy Building Award ceremony earlier this month at the World Energy Engineering Congress in Atlanta, Ga.
HHSC officials contracted with leaders at NORESCO LLC, a leading energy-services company in Hawai‘i and on the Mainland, to implement and manage energy projects for HHSC.
The energy savings, in turn, enabled HHSC to fund important capital improvements among the hospitals it manages, HHSC officials said.
The energy systems were put first at the three hospitals because they are “busiest,” and largest among the 11 state hospitals operated by HHSC, Takaaze said.
NORESCO officials will implement another combined heat and power system at Maui Memorial Hospital in the near future, Takaaze said.
Through its energy-services agreement with HHSC, NORESCO officials have guaranteed energy savings will be more than the cost to set up the energy-saving program, Takaaze said.
That could amount to $24 million over the years of the projects that will be eventually implemented at most or all of the HHSC hospitals, Takaaze said.
The energy-saving system doubles as a backup power supply in the event of a power blackout, Takaaze added.
Wayne Lu, HHSC board chairman, gave high praise for the savings and enhancements to the HHSC-managed hospital system that have been achieved by the systems.
“HHSC earned the award for aggressively increasing its overall energy efficiency, reducing its overall operating costs, and increasing power reliability to its hospitals,” Lu said in a news release.
HHSC President and Chief Executive Officer Thomas M. Driskill Jr. said a detailed energy audit by NORESCO opened the way for HHSC to streamline its operation, and to enhance cost-efficient services.
“Following a detailed energy audit by NORESCO, we saw the energy-services, performance-contracting program as a tremendous opportunity to leverage our energy savings to fund important capital improvements,” Driskill said.
He said HHSC hospitals had a “prior successful energy-efficiency experience with a fluorescent lighting and ballast upgrade in 1998,” Driskill continued.
“So we knew from experience that it is possible to use energy savings to fund capital improvements.”
HHSC was established by the state Legislature in 1996, and is a public-benefit corporation supported by the state.
Lester Chang may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net.
