Solar powering health care in Utah

Intermountain Health is celebrating a major advancement in its sustainability efforts with the opening of the 40 MW Castle Solar Farm in Utah, which will provide power for several Intermountain hospitals and clinics.

By Robin Brunet

Hospitals are distinct among public facilities in that they require an unusual amount of reliable power, due to the large number of services and equipment that are operated around the clock and year-round.

So the recent opening of the Castle Solar Farm near the Emery County town of Huntington in Utah is a breakthrough not only for the high costs associated with hospital energy consumption, but on a broader basis, for the solar power industry.

The integration of solar power in healthcare facilities can provide many benefits. Solar power helps health facilities save money, which can be reinvested to support other priority health programs. Facilities can generate their electricity, significantly reducing energy costs and reliance on the grid. This cost-saving aspect is particularly crucial for healthcare institutions, which are among the largest consumers of energy and face substantial electricity expenses.

The 40-megawatt Castle Solar Farm, situated 140 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, was contracted by Intermountain Health to produce enough electricity over the next 20 years to offset the total annual use of 17 Intermountain Health facilities, including 10 hospitals, resulting in a cost savings of over $500,000 annually.

“This is one of the biggest sustainability investments we’ve ever made, and we will be seeing benefits for decades to come,” said Eric Liston, Vice-President of Clinical Services for Intermountain Health—whose system includes 33 hospitals, approximately 400 clinics, a medical group, a health insurance company, and other health services.

“By making a cleaner environment in the communities that we serve, Intermountain is helping our patients live the healthiest lives possible,” added Liston.

Utah’s Enyo Energy, an independent wind, solar and storage company that specializes in developing utility-scale energy projects in the Intermountain West, originally developed Castle Solar. D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI) acquired the project in 2020 and
the following year commenced construction of the farm on 450 acres of largely state trust lands.

NORD/LB, the National Bank of Canada, and City National Bank provided financing for the deal, while U.S. company SOLV Energy provided engineering, procurement and construction work at the project; DESRI will continue to provide operations and maintenance services in the future.

DESRI’s guidance of the project is particularly apt. It is a leading developer, owner and operator of renewable energy projects in the U.S. and has a sizeable portfolio of solar projects currently in operation in Utah, one of the most recent being the 80 MW Elektron Solar facility in Tooele County. Castle Solar represents the third solar project the company constructed in Emery County.

“Despite supply chain constraints in the past few years, we are glad to continue to deliver new projects for our partners,” said Hy Martin, Chief Development Officer of DESRI, referring to PacifiCorp and the University of Utah, which in addition to Intermountain Health are recipients of Castle Solar’s energy output (local utility Rocky Mountain Power, a subsidiary of PacifiCorp, is providing the transmission to the grid for the electricity generated at the solar plant). 

The integration of solar power in healthcare facilities such as Utah’s Intermountain Health can provide many benefits. Solar power helps health facilities save money, which can be reinvested to support other priority health programs. Facilities can generate their own electricity, significantly reducing energy costs and reliance on the grid.

The two DESRI-developed power purchase agreements with Rocky Mountain Power are key to the project’s success. They were signed under the utility’s Schedule 34 program, a system by which it can acquire power from a range of projects with a capacity of greater than 5 MW, to serve a number of customers. These customers can aggregate their electricity demand, to enable them to acquire power en masse from utility-scale renewables projects, and include Salt Lake City and Utah Valley University.

While Castle Solar is a remarkable addition to Utah’s solar landscape, the farm’s development was aided greatly by the commitment of institutional and government bodies to making renewable energy a significant part of their operational portfolios.

Arguably, the University of Utah’s participation in the project wouldn’t have occurred had not the institution developed a thriving Sustainability & Energy group, which promotes maximum energy-efficiency at the university and reduces energy costs using utility procurement, incentives, and rebates. It also uses its role as a utility billing partner to identify other improvements in utility usage, such as electricity, natural gas, water, process water, and sewer.

All of the group’s efforts are geared towards making the university carbon neutral by 2040, and its early efforts in this regard are impressive: the university exceeded its goal of reducing energy by 20 percent by 2020 as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Better Buildings Challenge.”

With regard to Castle Solar, Lissa Larson, Associate Director, University of Utah Sustainability & Energy, pointed out during a ribbon cutting ceremony that the project “will provide more than 20 percent of the university’s purchased electricity,” making “a measurable impact on the university’s carbon footprint and stabilizing our operational costs.”

She added that the solar farm, coupled with a geothermal energy contract signed in 2018, has resulted in the university’s operations now deriving nearly 70 percent of its electricity from renewable sources.

	The 40-megawatt Castle Solar Farm, situated 140 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, was contracted by Intermountain Health to produce enough electricity over the next 20 years to offset the total annual use of 17 Intermountain Health facilities, including 10 hospitals, resulting in a cost savings of over $500,000 annually.

At least some portion of the university’s interest in Castle Solar pertained to economics. Thanks to the solar farm, the institution benefits from a fixed electricity rate for 25 years, providing predictable energy costs; and if the trend of rising electricity prices since 2010 continues, it is projected to save nearly $40 million over the contract’s duration without any increase in operational expenses.

Larson also pointed out to attendees that hundreds of jobs were created during Castle Solar’s construction, and the project will generate substantial tax revenue for Emery County over its lifetime (the lease agreement will return some funds to Utah because the project was sited on state trust lands, which raise revenue to support public schools and institutions).

As for Castle Solar’s other beneficiary and Utah’s largest private employer, Intermountain Health views sustainable operations as an opportunity that coincides with its advocacy for healthy behaviors and business practices. Intermountain’s main target is air pollution and has invested considerable resources to improve air quality, including a partnership in 2018 with Rocky Mountain Power and its Wattsmart Business Program to swap out all fluorescent lighting with LED lighting in all of its hospitals that year while making additional adjustments to reduce energy consumption.
From a national perspective, the Castle Solar project is presumably favoured by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), whose Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy states that, “Rapidly rising energy costs and tightening regulations on carbon emissions are making renewable energy increasingly compelling to hospitals.”

The office goes on to point out that, “Renewables can reduce the impact of hospital operations on power plant emissions and thus have a positive effect on environmental health.”

With regard to cost, it acknowledges that, “obtaining sufficient financing sometimes is the biggest roadblock to the use of renewable energy. When evaluating a project, hospitals should consider the merits of financing through direct ownership—in which there is an onsite, renewable energy asset—or third-party ownership—where there is a power-purchase agreement between the hospital and the owner of the renewable energy asset.”

The DOE encourages health authorities responsible for the function of hospitals to consider several important market- and policy-related factors in determining if renewables make sense for their facilities. These factors consist of:

• The availability of natural resources and the practicality of each type of renewable energy source vary widely by location.
• Capital costs, operating costs, scale
  of operation, and financing structure, all of which are critical to making a well-informed decision.
• Policies and incentives: government and utilities offer incentives that may strengthen the business case for renewable energy.

Also, the DOE notes that net metering laws encourage renewables by permitting a special metering/billing agreement between customers and utilities. Buildings’ renewable energy-generating systems are connected to the power grid, and owners receive a credit for electricity generated in excess of their own needs and contributed to the grid.

Finally, Castle Solar contributes to Utah’s growing strength in the renewables field. While the state is not a historic leader in America’s solar space (coal remains the dominant resource used for electric generation in the state), according to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), Utah had 2.7 GW of solar installed at the end of 2023, the 14th-most among the 50 states, up from 32nd earlier in the year.

The association expects Utah to add over 4 GW of new solar capacity over the next five years, the 13th-most in the U.S., with supportive legislation being a key driver of new installations.

Some other recent solar projects in Utah have been interesting, and added to those solar power generation numbers.

Mining giant Rio Tinto completed construction in 2024 on a new 5-megawatt solar power plant at its Kennecott copper operations in Utah. The 12,800 solar panel power plant will enable Kennecott to reduce its operational emissions by 3,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.

The 30-acre solar array will serve as a pilot project with the goal of expanding Kennecott’s solar energy supply in the future, says the company.

Shifting to sustainable energy solutions is a priority for Kennecott, Rio stated. The mine closed its coal-fired power plant in 2019, moving to electricity paired with renewable energy certificates, which resulted in a 65 percent reduction in its carbon footprint and the elimination of over 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide output per year.

“Rio Tinto Kennecott has a key role to play in supporting the energy transition,” said Managing Director Nate Foster.

“We supply U.S. companies with the copper and tellurium they need to produce solar panels, wind turbines, and conductors,” Foster said. “We also continue to take steps to further decarbonize our business, from our battery electric vehicle trial to our renewable diesel trial and now to our own solar plant.”

In northern Utah, the Steel Solar project in Plymouth, also a DESRI project, is now operational, and 250,000 solar panels are working to generate 80 megawatts. Named for its proximity to the Nucor Steel plant in Plymouth, Steel Solar covers 900 acres of former farm and rangeland.

The workers who built the project were supplied by SOLV Energy, a San Diego-based company that has partnered with D.E. Shaw on dozens of other projects around the country.

Less than 30 miles away from Steel Solar, another project of similar size and scope is now running. The Rocket Solar project, co-owned by D.E. Shaw and Enyo Energy, is another
80-megawatt producing solar farm that is selling the energy it produces to Rocky Mountain Power.

Located in Promontory, Rocket Solar is named for the Northrop Grumman facility nearby that develops rocket motors for the U.S. space program.