Mazzetti is helping transform healthcare infrastructure through renewable energy, working in partnership with Valley Children’s Healthcare. This collaboration, further bolstered by a recently awarded grant from the United States Department of Energy (DOE), aims to fortify the hospital’s energy resilience and significantly reduce its carbon footprint.
Valley Children’s Healthcare, in partnership with the California Energy Commission (CEC) and Faraday Microgrids, has been designated to receive a grant for long-duration energy storage demonstrations. The intention? To bolster the healthcare network’s clean energy storage capabilities, ensuring that power outages and electrical grid failures will never interrupt their patient care, especially for the children depending on it.
With Mazzetti providing strategic counsel and engineering expertise, and renewable microgrid developer Faraday Microgrids responsible for construction, the project is poised to make a tremendous impact not only for the local community but also the greater healthcare industry. Upon completion, Valley Children’s will operate the largest renewable energy microgrid in the nation linked to a hospital emergency system. Financially backed by $30 million from the DOE and an additional $25 million from the CEC, this project represents a significant investment in renewable energy infrastructure for healthcare.
“At the heart of Valley Children’s sustainability plan is our kids. Valley Children’s must ensure we always have a source of energy to care for them and their families under any circumstance or through any disruption – and we have a responsibility to improve the communities where our children live, learn and play,” says Valley Children’s President and CEO Todd Suntrapak. “The Department of Energy grant represents a transformative moment for Valley Children’s and for our communities, and places us at the forefront of creating safe, effective and reliable power systems for hospitals here and around the world.”
For years, Mazzetti has been instrumental in evolving the National Electric Code (NFPA 70) to enable cleaner, more efficient power systems in healthcare facilities. (Earlier this year, CMS issued a categorical waiver, permitting the use of alternative power sources for emergence back-up power. i.e., renewable energy microgrid vs. a diesel generator).
The renewable energy microgrid, which is currently in its first phase, is slated to be operational by 2025. It promises a reduction in carbon emissions by over half and provides a sustainable blueprint for other healthcare facilities nationwide.
Valley Children’s, an early signatory of the White House-HHS Health Sector Climate Pledge, is making further commitments to the environment by setting a goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
As Valley Children’s forges ahead with their sustainability initiatives, their partnership with Mazzetti is a testament to the integral role of engineering in pioneering a greener, more resilient future for healthcare. This is truly bending the climate curve™.
For a closer look at the project, including a rendering of the solar field, and for more details on Valley Children’s sustainability endeavors, visit valleychildrens.org/sustainability.
About Mazzetti: Mazzetti is a global engineering design and consulting firm with a rich history of delivering forward-thinking solutions for Healthcare, Life Sciences, and other highly complex sectors. As an employee-owned benefit corporation, we are committed to bending the climate curve™, as our public benefit to society. Though our story began with a small team of MEP engineers, 60 years later, we’ve grown to 200+ people, in 11 locations across the U.S. (and India) with diverse expertise addressing the spectrum of our client’s needs in the built environment.