DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY

Solar Hospital EnergyLeasing Demonstrator (SHIELD)

Project disclaimer

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Description

Kenya's public hospitals struggle with electrical power. They experience blackouts, instability in provision and have to pay variable and often quite high costs. The results of this are disastrous. When the power fails, so do the fridges and this breaks the 'cold chain'. Vaccines can be lost and expensive medicines perished, but even worse, surgeries have to be cancelled or abandoned. Even though the power is not reliable, it is still expensive and hospitals must pay significant sums each month to keep the lights on. Unfortunately, things are likely to get worse: as the climate changes extreme weather is likely to cause more significant impacts and this will cause closures and disruptions to service. Public hospitals in Kenya serve the most vulnerable populations - those who have no other options. Hence, reducing their access to healthcare has devastating consequences and can hold back the development of the cities, and towns that rely on these important healthcare providers. More positively, onsite solar energy generation provides a technological solutions with huge potential to address these key issues. We aim to install a solar system at one of Kenya's most important public hospitals. We will show that the installation can offer huge advantages to the hospital in terms of cost, reliability and stability, with the positive result that they are able to be a more effective healthcare provider to desperate patients in need of care. Solar is currently perceived as being a private sector solution, but we will work with stakeholders to show that the benefits far outweigh the risks for large consumers of energy such as hospitals. We will install a system at Meru Teaching hospital - a well known Level 5 facility - and collect a range of data on how much energy can be generated, how it is used, what operational effects it has, and how much carbon and money is saved . We want to share this data through a representative steering group with the government and other stakeholders so that they can make better choices about how energy is funded. We believe this project will make Kenya's hospitals more resilient so that they can save more lives and work through the extreme weather they face in the years ahead. We want to use this project to show other hospitals in Africa that installations such as this can be cost-effective and value-adding.

Objectives

Kenya's public hospitals struggle with electrical power. They experience blackouts, instability in provision and have to pay variable and often quite high costs. The results of this are disastrous. When the power fails, so do the fridges and this breaks the 'cold chain'. Vaccines can be lost and expensive medicines perished, but even worse, surgeries have to be cancelled or abandoned. Even though the power is not reliable, it is still expensive and hospitals must pay significant sums each month to keep the lights on. Unfortunately, things are likely to get worse: as the climate changes extreme weather is likely to cause more significant impacts and this will cause closures and disruptions to service. Public hospitals in Kenya serve the most vulnerable populations - those who have no other options. Hence, reducing their access to healthcare has devastating consequences and can hold back the development of the cities, and towns that rely on these important healthcare providers. More positively, onsite solar energy generation provides a technological solutions with huge potential to address these key issues. We aim to install a solar system at one of Kenya's most important public hospitals. We will show that the installation can offer huge advantages to the hospital in terms of cost, reliability and stability, with the positive result that they are able to be a more effective healthcare provider to desperate patients in need of care. Solar is currently perceived as being a private sector solution, but we will work with stakeholders to show that the benefits far outweigh the risks for large consumers of energy such as hospitals. We will install a system at Meru Teaching hospital - a well known Level 5 facility - and collect a range of data on how much energy can be generated, how it is used, what operational effects it has, and how much carbon and money is saved . We want to share this data through a representative steering group with the government and other stakeholders so that they can make better choices about how energy is funded. We believe this project will make Kenya's hospitals more resilient so that they can save more lives and work through the extreme weather they face in the years ahead. We want to use this project to show other hospitals in Africa that installations such as this can be cost-effective and value-adding.

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Location

The country, countries or regions that benefit from this Programme.

Kenya

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