Valley Children’s Healthcare launched a bold plan earlier this year to design, build and implement a clean energy strategy that would ensure - above all else - that patient care is never interrupted due to power outages, electrical grid failures or other events that would limit our ability to provide care to the children who depend on it. The plan will also reduce costs, and help clean up the air in one of America’s most polluted counties.
This week, the project got even better.
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced that the team of Valley Children’s, the California Energy Commission (CEC) and Faraday Microgrids is the recipient of a long-duration energy storage demonstrations grant to accelerate and expand the healthcare network’s clean energy storage capabilities. This ground-breaking microgrid at Valley Children’s is one of just 15 projects chosen as part of the DOE’s $325 million commitment to fund similar projects nationwide that promote adoption of renewable energy resources and advance critical clean air technologies.
“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.”
Valley Children’s project, to be engineered by Mazzetti and built by renewable microgrid developer, Faraday Microgrids, is expected to receive $30 million from the DOE and an additional $25 million from the CEC. At the project’s completion, Valley Children’s is projected to operate the largest renewable energy microgrid in the country, connected to a hospital emergency system.
“The mission of Valley Children’s is to provide high quality healthcare and to continuously improve the health and well-being of kids, and there are few roles more important in community improvement than to contribute to the environment in which our children live - not just today but in generations from now,” says Valley Children’s Senior VP and Chief Community Impact Officer Lynne Ashbeck. “This grant will allow us to engage our communities around issues involving the impacts of climate change, sustainability and the environment.”
“The expansion of Valley Children’s existing microgrid plans represents a remarkable leap forward in terms of providing safe, effective and reliable clean power systems to healthcare networks,” says Dr. David Bliss, pediatric surgeon and CEO of Faraday Microgrids. “We are proud to partner with Valley Children’s, whose leaders had the vision to recognize what is needed not only today, but in the future, and with the State of California, working in service of the communities that rely on Valley Children’s to take care of kids – no matter what.”
Over the next several months, Valley Children’s, the DOE, CEC and Faraday Microgrids will finalize the terms of the grant.
Meanwhile, work continues on phase 1 of Valley Children’s renewable energy microgrid. When online and operational in 2025, the renewable energy microgrid will reduce reliance on the traditional power grid, ensuring Valley Children’s Hospital and buildings on its campus remain operational in the event of power outages in the region. It will also cut carbon emissions by more than 50%.
Valley Children’s, one of the first hospitals to sign the White House-HHS Health Sector Climate Pledge, has also committed to achieving net zero by the year 2050, meaning the entire campus will produce no carbon emissions, eliminating its carbon footprint and any negative impact on air quality.
For more information about the DOE grant, click here. To see a rendering of the solar field – designed in the shape of Valley Children’s Mascot, George the Giraffe – and to learn more about Valley Children's commitment to improving air quality and building energy resilience, visit valleychildrens.org/sustainability.