Solar power provides reliable electricity to rural hospitals

RAICHUR, India (AP) — In the scorching heat that often engulfs Raichur, an ancient town in southern India, a ceiling fan brings welcome relief to newborns and their mothers at the Government Maternity Hospital.

But such a respite was not always guaranteed in a region where frequent outages to the country’s overwhelmed power grid can stretch out for hours. It wasn’t until the hospital installed solar panels on its roof a year ago that it was able to count on constant electricity, which keeps the lights on, patients and staff comfortable, and vaccines and medicines refrigerated and safe.

The diesel-powered generator it used to provide emergency backup — spewing pro-global warming gases and toxic smoke within striking distance of newborns every time it ran — is gone. It’s also no longer necessary to use flashlights during one of the 600 or so deliveries the hospital attends to each year, something the staff had to do when a sudden power outage hit and the old generators were broken.

For Martha Jones, a veteran nurse who has assisted in countless deliveries, the reliability that solar power has brought has been a revelation.

“We don’t even know when a power outage occurs, or when the power comes back on,” Jones said.

In semi-urban and rural regions of India and other developing countries with unreliable electricity grids, decentralized renewable energy – especially solar – is making all the difference in providing health care of modern standards. And it is becoming even more essential where extremes in weather and heat are increasing due to climate change. In Raichur, for example, temperatures can reach 42 degrees Celsius (107 degrees Fahrenheit) in the hottest months.

The hospital, a bare-bones facility serving thousands of people who cannot afford private medical care, is one of 251 medical facilities in Raichur district powered by rooftop solar panels under a program spearheaded by the Selco Foundation. The Bangalore-based non-profit body has raised funds from Indian and international corporations and coordinated with the local government since 2017.

Installing one of these systems in public health care facilities costs about $8,500, and includes lead-acid batteries that store electricity for use overnight. For smaller clinics the cost is approximately $2,000. The facility is still connected to the public power grid, but only as backup to the solar energy system.

Some of the patients at the Government Maternity Hospital, such as 25-year-old Sandhya Shivappa, said they knew little or nothing about the hospital using solar energy and were simply grateful for the free services it provides.

“We would be paying 30,000 rupees ($367) if I wanted to have my baby in a private hospital,” said Shivappa, who had just given birth to a healthy baby girl.

Switching hospitals and clinics to clean energy helps cut emissions in a sector that generates about 4.4% of the global figure, according to a study by Health Care Without Harm, an international nonprofit organization that work to reduce them. And that aligns with broader goals in India, the world‘s most populous country and the planet’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Although India currently relies heavily on coal to generate its electricity, it has a goal of installing 450 gigawatts of renewable energy that should cover about half of its needs by the end of this decade. Achieving that goal will require a rapid increase in solar energy, especially from panels placed on roofs.

Today India only has installed about a quarter of the 40 gigawatts of rooftop solar panels that politicians planned to have last year. Problems in supply chains and tariffs on imported components have contributed to that deficit. But the country has also consistently reiterated the importance of receiving money from developed countries and multilateral development banks to help it achieve its climate protection goals.

In addition to providing uninterrupted electricity, rooftop solar panels are helping medical facilities cut costs. In nearby Zahirabad, a low-income neighborhood, Dr. Kavyashri Sugur said the public health center she oversees has paid about 50% less for electricity in the two years since the solar kit was installed.

That’s a huge benefit in a country that spends among the least money on health care in the world — India spends just over 2% of its national budget on medical services, compared to 18% in the United States. States_, and many hospitals and clinics have liquidity problems.

Powering health care centers in remote regions with solar power systems has been especially important for villagers who lack the time or money to visit hospitals in the city, and would likely simply have gone without such care, said Hanumantappa Channadaser, manager from the Selco office in Raichur.

“Before solar power systems, people were afraid to visit these hospitals due to power outages and had no faith in the treatment they would receive,” Channadaser said.

Recently, Selco, the Ikea Foundation and the Indian Ministry of Health announced that they will put solar panels in 25,000 government healthcare facilities across 12 states by 2026. Ikea has committed $48 million to the project. Selco is also working with the International Renewable Energy Agency and the World Health Organization in Africa to increase decentralized solar power systems for healthcare facilities on that continent.

Shirin Fatima, who was four months pregnant and visiting the Zahirabad health center for a check-up, said she appreciates how “blood tests, pills, everything is free here.” The fact that the hospital now uses solar-generated electricity “is definitely a good thing,” she added.

“If the hospital is saving on its bills, the benefits will also be for us,” he said.

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Sibi Arasu is on Twitter as: @sibi123

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