Adventist Health and ENGIE North America Announce Completion of Energy Resilient Medical Facility in Paradise, California
Adventist Health facility, located in a community heavily damaged by the 2018 Camp Fire, now delivers safe, reliable and clean energy through solar & microgrid project.
Houston and Roseville, Calif. – April 1, 2021 – Adventist Health and ENGIE North America today announced the completion of their solar and microgrid project in Paradise, California. The Feather River Health Care facility includes a one-megawatt hour energy storage system combined with 425 kilowatts of solar and new, permanent back-up generator. The new, integrated system is designed to deliver clean energy while ensuring energy resiliency to continue to serve the community during public safety power shutoff (PSPS) events. Adventist Health’s hospital was heavily damaged by one of the most destructive fires in California history, the 2018 Camp Fire, and the Feather River Health Center is now the main location for healthcare services available on the ridge.
“After our Feather River hospital was severely damaged, we wanted to provide better reliability to the community with new solutions that would allow us to be fully operational during any future power outages,” said Tim Williams, Administrative Director, Physician & Outpatient Services, Adventist Health. “Building long-term resiliency is key in this region impacted by risk of natural disasters and subsequent PSPS events. As energy reliability and resiliency planning becomes paramount across the United States, we are gratified by the outcome of this project, but more importantly proud of the immediate impact it will provide the ridge community.”
In case of a power outage, the microgrid controller energy storage system will isolate the facility from the grid, allowing the facility to be powered by solar, the energy storage system and generator thereby creating a microgrid. The microgrid will use its own internal battery storage to stabilize the facility loads and it will also control the generation from both the solar system and the 250 kW permanent generator, allowing Adventist Health to maintain a stable energy source to the facility during the outage. The transfer of power from the utility to the microgrid happens in less than one second, creating a seamless transfer.
“The transition from traditional back-up power solutions to cleaner, healthier, and more intelligent energy systems has recently become much easier and more attainable for facilities of all sizes — especially critical in the healthcare field,” said Courtney Jenkins, Vice President and General Manager at ENGIE. “ENGIE is proud to provide a reliable framework for how to meet the energy resiliency needs of hospitals and medical facilities, that by definition need to be the most resilient and safe assets in their communities. Helping to demonstrate the power of solar microgrids at the Feather River Health Center has been a meaningful opportunity to support Adventist Health’s impact to the ridge community.
About Adventist Health
Adventist Health is a faith-based, nonprofit integrated health system serving more than 80 communities on the West Coast and Hawaii as well as others across the U.S. through its Blue Zones company, a pioneer in taking a systemic and environmental approach to improving the health of entire cities and communities. Through this work, Adventist Health is leading a 21st century well-being transformation movement. Founded on Seventh-day Adventist heritage and values, Adventist Health provides care in hospitals, clinics, its innovative Adventist Health Hospital@Home program that provides virtual in-patient care at home, home care agencies, hospice agencies and joint-venture retirement centers in both rural and urban communities. Our compassionate and talented team of 37,000 includes associates, medical staff physicians, allied health professionals and volunteers driven in pursuit of one mission: living God’s love by inspiring health, wholeness and hope. Together, we are transforming the American healthcare experience with an innovative, yet timeless, whole-person focus on physical, mental, spiritual and social healing to support community well-being.
About ENGIE North America
ENGIE North America Inc. offers a range of capabilities in the United States and Canada to help our customers achieve their sustainability goals as we work together to shape a sustainable future. Our comprehensive services include helping run facilities more efficiently and optimize energy and other resource use and costs; clean power generation; energy storage; and retail energy supply that includes renewable, demand response, and on-bill financing options. Nearly 100% of the company’s power generation portfolio is low-carbon or renewable. ENGIE S.A. is a global organization focused on low-carbon energy and services, that relies on its key businesses (gas, renewable energy, services) to offer competitive solutions to its customers. With 170,000 employees, along with its customers, partners and stakeholders, the group is committed to accelerating the transition to a carbon-neutral world through reduced energy consumption and more environmentally-friendly solutions. For more information on ENGIE North America, please visit our LinkedIn page or Twitter feed, www.engie-na.com and www.engie.com.
Media Contacts:
Anne Smith
ENGIE North America
408-313-8089
anne.smith@engie.com
Laurie Anne Allen
Adventist Health Clear Lake
P 707-995-5879
allenla01@ah.org