In an interview, CHCC-Public Health and Hospital Emergency Preparedness Program director Warren Villagomez said the solar panel will supply energy to the emergency room and the radiology department.
“They are the most heavily loaded departments,” he added, but they will not “totally rely on the solar panel, which does not generate power at night.”
Still, he said, “with this project, we are expecting a reduction in our monthly power bill by about 18% to 22%.”
The construction of the solar power project started in Aug. 2018, but because Typhoons Mangkhut and Yutu hit Saipan in September and October, the project was not completed until early this year.
Connecting the system to the hospital was then delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
It was in 2018 when the U.S. Department of the Interior awarded CHCC a grant of $560,000 for phase 1 of the solar power project, which aims to reduce the hospital’s utility costs.
Villagomez earlier said CHCC was “working with Interior and with other funding sources to move forward with phases 2 and 3.”
