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Northwell Health is pursuing a grid-responsive healthcare portfolio using storage projects funded by utilities and New York State to protect patient care, cut carbon, and manage costs.
Northwell Health is treating grid responsiveness as hospital infrastructure first and an energy strategy second, using storage projects to protect patient care during grid stress while creating a path to lower emissions and utility costs.
That priority starts with resiliency. One of the system’s largest hospitals sits on a constrained electrical network, and another does not have all of its chillers on emergency power. “If we have some form of storage, not only are we load flattening, but we’re improving the resiliency of the hospital, maintaining chilled water through power outages,” said Michael Rohan, Principal of Energy and Engineering at Northwell Health.
That framing is shaping project selection. Rather than limit the discussion to batteries, Northwell described a broader storage stack that includes existing ice storage, planned thermal storage, hydrogen, and geothermal. Burgess said owners should “get in the door” on mission-critical resiliency, then extend project scope to capture ROI and carbon value.
One clear example is Northwell's decade-old thermal storage project at Mather Hospital on Long Island. Rohan said the utility provided a $1 million award, and the system now makes ice at night and melts it from about 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. During a past outage, that let the hospital circulate water instead of running chillers.
The organization is also positioning these projects for outside funding. Rohan pointed to NYSERDA's Empire Building Challenge and said the current focus is on “scalable, replicable projects.”
For energy managers, the practical point is that grid-interactive projects get capital traction faster when they are tied to building resiliency and risk mitigation, not just decarbonization.
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Northwell Health is treating grid responsiveness as hospital infrastructure first and an energy strategy second, using storage projects to protect patient care during grid stress while creating a path to lower emissions and utility costs.
That priority starts with resiliency. One of the system’s largest hospitals sits on a constrained electrical network, and another does not have all of its chillers on emergency power. “If we have some form of storage, not only are we load flattening, but we’re improving the resiliency of the hospital, maintaining chilled water through power outages,” said Michael Rohan, Principal of Energy and Engineering at Northwell Health.
That framing is shaping project selection. Rather than limit the discussion to batteries, Northwell described a broader storage stack that includes existing ice storage, planned thermal storage, hydrogen, and geothermal. Burgess said owners should “get in the door” on mission-critical resiliency, then extend project scope to capture ROI and carbon value.
One clear example is Northwell's decade-old thermal storage project at Mather Hospital on Long Island. Rohan said the utility provided a $1 million award, and the system now makes ice at night and melts it from about 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. During a past outage, that let the hospital circulate water instead of running chillers.
The organization is also positioning these projects for outside funding. Rohan pointed to NYSERDA's Empire Building Challenge and said the current focus is on “scalable, replicable projects.”
For energy managers, the practical point is that grid-interactive projects get capital traction faster when they are tied to building resiliency and risk mitigation, not just decarbonization.
Register for the next Nexus Labs event
Sign up for the newsletter to get 5 stories like this per week:
This is a great piece!
I agree.