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The team at Gippsland Lakes Complete Health is pretty excited about a big solar power and battery system on the way for its Lakes Entrance facility.

Gippsland Lakes Complete Health has been operating since 1975; providing health services throughout the region from central sites located at Lakes Entrance, Bairnsdale, Bruthen, Metung and Nowa Nowa, and through a broader partner network.

As for all health services, electricity is a major cost for the organisation – and supply of electricity can also be a challenge during extreme weather events and other natural (or otherwise) disasters.

GLCH is looking forward to the sun helping out on all fronts after securing State Government funding to support a $500,000 project involving 100kW of solar panel capacity, 200kWh of battery storage and a 100kVa generator.

“The solar system will be particularly handy if the main power grid goes down or the region is subject to bushfire, flood or storm damage,” states GLCH. “This means we can keep providing you with your essential medical and health needs no matter what Mother Nature throws at us.”

The image above indicates GLCH’s facility in Lakes Entrance already had solar panels on its rooftop back in 2017. The solar panels appeared to still be in place in a recent shot, but whether they’ll be staying or removed as part of this project is unknown.

The organisation mentions it will save almost $30,000 a year on power bills through the project, and the solar panels are expected to pay for themselves with 15 years. I assume that refers to the whole solar + battery storage system.

That’s quite a long time when you consider a 100kW solar-only system would pay for itself in a fraction of that – but for a facility like GLCH Lakes Entrance providing very important services to the community, solar battery storage isn’t just a handy thing to have in a blackout.

As well as providing backup power and electricity bill savings, GLCH says the system will help the organisation towards more sustainable operations.

At least one other GLCH site has gone solar – back in 2019, a 53.55kW system was installed at its facility in Bairnsdale.

While on the topic of blackouts, given recent events there has been an uptick in energy storage interest from businesses and homeowners – find out more about solar power and batteries in blackouts.

The Victorian Government has been pretty good in supporting health care facilities in installing solar panels. Its Regional Health Solar Program, which was to have finished up by the middle of this year, was a $13.5 million initiative assisting a total of 79 healthcare and related facilities with systems ranging in size from a modest 8kW to a huge 759kW installation for Central Gippsland Health Service in Sale. Collectively, 8.8MW of capacity was to be installed under the initiative.

It doesn’t appear the GLCH installation was part of this scheme, so it’s nice to see the Victorian Government continuing to support other health facility PV projects outside of the Regional Health Solar Program.

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Michael caught the solar power bug after purchasing components to cobble together a small off-grid PV system in 2008. He's been reporting on Australian and international solar energy news ever since.

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