Hospital Microgrid in Bonne Fin, Haiti

Located in the mountains of Southern Haiti, Hospital Lumiere is a 120-bed medical-surgical facility that serves the 60,000 residences of Bonne Fin despite having no access to utility power. Instead, the hospital relied on a combination of aging hydro and diesel generators, leaving the hospital struggling with costly fuel bills and regular brown and blackouts that interrupted medical care, damaged sensitive equipment, and jeopardized medicine storage.

To alleviate these issues, Smucker's Energy of Pennsylvania spearheaded the construction of a solar microgrid. In conjunction with Greentech Renewables' design team, Smucker's designed the AC-coupled microgrid with the goal of enhanced resiliency for the critical medical center. The project features SolarWorld modules, Sunny Boy inverters, Sunny Island hybrid inverters, Everest racking, and GS Battery SLR batteries.

Within nine months of the project's completion, Hurricane Matthew struck the island of Haiti. The category-5 hurricane reached sustained wind speeds of 160 mph. The graph below demonstrates the immediate impact of the solar + storage system. With plentiful sun leading up to the hurricane, the diesel generator rarely needed to be run other than an occasional daily cycle. Once the hurricane arrived with cloudy weather, the microgrid shifted towards energy consumption from the SLR battery system. Once these batteries were fully discharged, the hospital drew from the generator until sunlight returned to power the battery bank. Thus, the Hospital Lumiere is a living demonstration of increasing the reliability of electric services for critical infrastructure during natural disasters.