Continuous power supply is critical to maintain health care facilities and the health and safety of patients during emergency operations. As a result, hospitals must have robust power systems to continue operations in the event of a grid outage. Most of these systems are powered by diesel generators. As health care companies seek to improve their sustainability and protect their power systems against risk, they are beginning to incorporate renewable energy into their distributed energy power systems. Sustainable options like solar power with battery backup can mitigate the risks of traditional backup power sources while also reducing environmental impact.

Traditionally, hospitals’ emergency backup power systems have been designed to remain off during normal conditions, and then to kick in immediately when grid power supply is lost. Most hospital power systems consist of (a) grid power, (b) a diesel generator designed for emergency use only, (c) in some cases a cogen/CHP generator to provide on-going distributed energy, and (d) controls to shut down non-critical loads during an outage. A distributed energy controller acts as the physical and system control conductor of the orchestra of generation and demand resources, providing safe, reliable, continuous power.