by Brianna Crandall — January 14, 2011—Kaiser Permanente’s Santa Clara Medical Center in California 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. The solar panels will produce 8.5 percent of the power used at the medical center.
Kaiser Permanente signed an agreement in March with San Francisco-based Recurrent Energy, a solar project developer and generating company providing clean electricity to utilities and large energy users, to install solar power systems at 15 of its California facilities. The systems will deploy a total of 15 megawatts of solar energy by the end of 2011.
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.
Kaiser Permanente agreed to purchase the solar power through power purchase agreements with Recurrent Energy, which will own and operate all of the solar power systems. Kaiser Permanente also will retain all the Renewable Energy Credits awarded for these solar projects. The company plans to incorporate a wide array of renewable sources in its energy portfolio in the future, which could include thermal energy, wind and fuel cells.
Visit the project’s Solar Monitor widget to see real-time solar energy savings at the medical center.
