Research Article

Powering primary healthcare centres with clean energy sources

Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem – Hadassah Ein Kerem, P.O. Box 12272, Jerusalem 91120, Israel

^* e-mail: anayochukwu.vincent@gmail.com

Received: 19 April 2020
Received in final form: 10 December 2020
Accepted: 11 December 2020

Abstract

Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) remain the populations' first point of contact when seeking medical help. Women and children, whose health status decides the fate of the country, are the predominant users of primary healthcare centres which means they (the PHCs') must function as high quality health providers. Karshi Primary Healthcare Centre (KPHC) is one of the health facility that need reliable electricity to improve their healthcare delivery. Due to unreliable power supply, they rely on a diesel powered solution as a primary source of power supply. This negatively impacts patients and the environment, and has been a burden on their operational budgets. Change in energy system is the solution to this unreliable, costly, and unsecure power supply in Karshi, and its objective is to improve and enhance the quality of healthcare delivery services. The assumption is that with better energy source, there will be better healthcare services. A solar powered system with battery storage was proposed as the solution and the simulation results demonstrate that except for the initial cost of investment, the solar PV generator performs better than the diesel generator, in terms of the life cycle costs and the cost per unit energy. The life cycle cost and the cost of energy show a decrease of 75% each. The environmental analysis implies that the solar PV energy system has the potential to avoid the 9371 kg of carbon dioxide if the system is implemented in the future at KPHC. The proposed powered system will supply electricity for the laboratory equipment (centrifuges, microscopes, blood chemical analyzer, hematology analyzer, CD4 machine), vaccine-refrigeration, general purpose refrigerator, computer and telecommunications, while being able to cater to a greater number of patients than in the past.