By Mark Feasel / Special to Healthcare Facilities Today

Hospitals and healthcare facilities are often pillars of the communities they serve. While the care of patients, safety of staff and comfort of visitors remain top priorities, today a commitment to environmental sustainability and reliability of energy, both electrical and thermal, are moving to the forefront.

Healthcare facilities simply cannot afford to undertake the risk of electrical or thermal system failures, even for only a nanosecond. And for facilities like hospitals—where the welfare of patients is vital—it can draw the line between life and death. Thankfully, the evolution in microgrid technologies, and other key aspects of cost, finance, incentives and business models, are making it possible to produce reliable critical power locally, more efficiently, more sustainably and for less money.

The advantages of microgrid deployments are well-documented, and major facilities have long deployed microgrids as interconnected power assets that allow critical power to become more reliable. This passive use of the grid decreases risk of mission critical failure by adding a standby power source; if a primary power source, the microgrid would generate energy locally at a lower cost as well as act as a backup source to ensure electrical system stay on through a utility outage. For years, microgrids were deployed passively and only as backup sources, sitting on standby until a power incident occurred in order to avoid mission critical outages. But as the market for microgrids has grown—projected by Transparency Market Research for over 20 percent annual growth and to reach $35.1 billion by 2020—the manner in which grids are deployed has evolved as well.

 At its core, a microgrid is a local, interconnected energy system that manages distributed energy resources to optimize electric and thermal usage in a single facility, or throughout a campus. By connecting to legacy generators and renewable energy sources and/or energy storage, microgrids are an interactive member of the energy value chain that allows facility operators to produce and consume power more cheaply and efficiently, all while maintaining reliability by drawing upon a variety of energy resources. Whereas microgrids were once used primarily as backup, today’s next-generation microgrids have connectivity tools that allow for synchronization with the larger grid and provide value 24/7, in addition to their support for emergency power provision.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has advanced microgrid connectivity rapidly; as businesses in all industries explore the advantages of interconnectivity, the benefits of microgrids have become more apparent. The use of these technologies is set to increase exponentially over time as we continue to perfect embedded technologies and sensors. This means automated and connected technologies are poised to continue to grow rapidly implantation, forming a perfect marriage with the burgeoning smartgrid market.

Advanced microgrids are able to draw upon data points such as weather forecasts, historical consumption and use analytics to ensure that a facility is optimizing its power usage—a significant advancement in the ability to fully understand and tune the performance of your energy. These automated systems can actively anticipate power interruptions caused by weather or increased activity from a specific source and consequently deploy analytics to draw upon power sources that maintain optimal power efficiency throughout those events. Additionally, software applications that come with the microgrid can also offer facility managers more autonomy over their power distribution, suggesting power sources based on a cost-benefit analysis and enable remote control and monitoring.

Today’s microgrids are more interconnected than legacy power grids, incorporating islandable backup systems, forecasting systems, and power control systems to optimize both power generation and load. Tied into a single package, these tools can combine into a “microgrids-as-a-service” package for facilities such as hospitals, where the typical end user seeks the benefits of a microgrid without having the means to run one on their own. Autonomous power control systems make this a reality for hospitals, as these facilities can rely on the provider’s expertise to run the microgrid in order to optimize efficiency. Consequently, “microgrids-as-a-service” allows the microgrid to become much more accessible for public facilities like hospitals, which may not have the means or desire to operate a grid on their own.

The connected grid generates incremental revenue streams by actively providing key services without undermining the core resiliency requirement. Advanced microgrids ensure an optimized level of power usage throughout a facility, which has a myriad of advantages not only in cost, but in renewable energy consumption as well. This proves to be crucial for healthcare facilities meeting the standards of its governing bodies, which are in turn empowering end users to exercise autonomy over the energy value chain by leveraging renewable energy to be more energy efficient.

Microgrid deployment has both direct and indirect benefits in enabling more sustainable energy usage. Contemporary regulatory policies are empowering end users to play a more active role in their energy consumption, which allows facilities to forward those finances towards purchasing power agreements that help them achieve reliability, sustainability and cost benefits without any capital outlay. With increased monitoring and control over distributed power resources, facility managers can optimize energy spend and reduce overconsumption of power from inefficient sources. And traditional generation can be integrated with renewable energy sources as part of the next-generation smartgrid, reducing the consumption of non-renewable energy.

Hospitals are only one kind of essential facility leveraging the advantages of the microgrid; public facilities such as zoos, aquariums, commercial buildings, airports and industrial plants and even cities and towns are turning to connected microgrids with either remote or autonomous operation for their power resources. With connected tools and analytics that make microgrids more informed than its managers, the microgrid has the ability to optimize energy spend for any type of facility. This brings particular value to public facilities like hospitals, which draw upon mass quantities of power to maintain daily operations without risking an outage. It goes without saying that it is simply not an option for a hospital to experience even a short power outage. As a result, next-generation microgrids offer healthcare facilities the ideal power source for maintaining user experience while optimizing energy consumption.

The ultimate goal for a hospital’s critical systems is to keep people comfortable and provide a safe environment for patients, staff and guests. Leveraging advanced microgrids to lower operational costs and increase sustainability brings facilities closer to achieving all of these critical objectives.

Mark Feasel is the President, Electric Utility Segment & Smart Grid, for Schneider Electric.