Brynwhillach Solar Farm begins exporting zero-carbon electricity to Morriston Hospital as project officially goes live.
The Swansea Bay University Health Board solar farm has reached an exciting milestone after the 10,000 solar panels installed by Vital Energi went live and began exporting electricity to Morriston Hospital.
The installation will generate 4MW of zero-carbon electricity for the hospital and will reduce the Health Board’s carbon emissions by 20,000 tonnes over the lifecycle of the project.
Scott Lutton, Operations Director - North and Scotland explains, “This is a very important project for both the Health Board and the NHS in general as it will be the first Welsh hospital to receive its electricity from a dedicated solar farm and in addition to the large carbon savings, the hospital will reduce its energy spend by £439,000 per year.
“As energy security is paramount to the NHS, the solar farm underwent a rigorous testing period and met all the requirements of the local district network operator. Once it successfully passed these requirements the system went live and is now supplying zero carbon electricity to the hospital.”
Vital Energi have also installed the supporting electrical infrastructure and 3km private wire network which will connect the solar farm to Morriston hospital.
This is the second energy project Vital Energi have delivered for SBUHB after phase 1 saw them deliver a range of energy conservation measures which reduced carbon emissions by 2,476 tonnes per annum whilst generating £870,000 of cost savings per year. Both projects were procured through the RE:FIT framework and come with an energy performance contract which guarantees performance, financial and carbon targets.
