Meritus Health in Hagerstown has commissioned a multi phase microgrid so the medical center can keep operating during utility outages. The project entered service in October and is expected to save about 1.6 million dollars per year while avoiding roughly two thousand metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
The system combines on site solar, combined heat and power, intelligent microgrid controls for safe islanding, electric vehicle charging, and absorption chilling that uses recovered heat to provide cooling without extra electric load. The goal is continuous care during grid events with stable power quality for critical equipment and lower day to day energy costs.
Hospitals face steep losses when the grid goes down. Revenue stops the moment elective procedures and imaging are canceled, while fixed costs for staff, supplies, and backup fuel continue. Industry analyses often place the financial impact in the tens of thousands of dollars per hour for a midsize facility and into the hundreds of thousands per hour for larger campuses when multiple operating rooms and diagnostic suites are idled. Certain areas such as operating rooms can reach several thousand dollars per minute in lost billable activity once cases are delayed or diverted. Beyond direct revenue loss, outages create downstream costs from rescheduling, spoilage of temperature-sensitive supplies, overtime to recover the schedule, and reputational harm when patients are diverted to other systems. Engineering documentation indicates the controls manage normal grid connected operation and transition to island mode when required, coordinating CHP, renewables, and facility loads. Taken together, the design gives the hospital a practical template for resilience that other health systems can replicate.
The microgrid includes these features:
- Combined heat and power system rated at approximately 2.4 megawatts
- On site solar generation integrated with a battery ready control platform
- Islanding and black start capability with automated transfer back to the grid
- Absorption chiller that turns recovered heat into cooling to reduce electric load
- EV charging on campus to support staff and visitors
- Projected annual savings of about 1.6 million dollars with avoided emissions near two thousand metric tons
Telepath Systems trains the people who make projects like these real. Our six week Microgrid Systems Foundations course with Cleveland State University covers the essentials of electricity and grid architecture, the core components of microgrids including DERs, storage, power electronics and controls, and load management with power quality and prioritization. Missed our October cohort? Register for our upcoming January cohort.