{"id":329580,"date":"2020-09-10T06:03:08","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T20:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=329580"},"modified":"2020-09-10T06:03:08","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T20:03:08","slug":"chcs-solar-power-project-completed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/chcs-solar-power-project-completed\/","title":{"rendered":"CHC\u2019s solar power project completed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For those who haven\u2019t been to the Commonwealth Health Center in Lower Navy Hill lately, the back portion of the hospital, which used to be an extensive parking lot, now sports new awnings that are also equipped with solar panels. The solar panel project, called the Photovoltaic System Parking Shade Structure, is estimated to save the hospital as much as $700,000 in utility costs a year. The project started in October 2019.
(NEIL FAMA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After nearly a year of construction, the first phase of the Commonwealth Health Center\u2019s solar power project has been completed, resulting in a covered parking lot at the back of the building that generates power for two of the hospital\u2019s medical departments.<\/p>\n

Warren Villagomez, who heads the Governor\u2019s COVID-19 Task Force, says that the solar panels\u2014which are affixed to the roofs of the awnings that now cover parts of the CHC rear parking lot\u2014are generating power for the \u201cmost heavily loaded department,\u201d which is the hospital\u2019s emergency room and radiology department.<\/p>\n

He said they have been doing a \u201cmeasurable load calculation\u201d on the hospital\u2019s power savings and they concluded that the hospital will be able to save 18% to 20% of CHC\u2019s regular power load.<\/p>\n

The project, called the Photovoltaic System Parking Shade Structure, first broke ground on Aug. 13, 2018, but started official construction only in October 2019. The 2018 groundbreaking was only for the first phase of the project that would cover the entire parking lot of the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first phase will cover section D of the parking lot. We\u2019re applying for other grants so we could continue all the way to the north side,\u201d said Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. chief executive officer Esther L. Mu\u00f1a in an earlier interview.<\/p>\n

With the solar power panels now fully activated, the new solar panels are projected to lessen the corporation\u2019s recurring monthly bill with the Commonwealth Utilities Corp., Villagomez said.<\/p>\n

CHCC estimates to save as much as $700,000 a year on its utility bills once the project is completed.<\/p>\n

The project was made possible after CHCC received a $560,000 grant from the Department of the Interior\u2019s Office of Insular Affairs Energizing Insular Communities program. According to previous articles, the first phase of CHCC\u2019s solar power project was partially funded by the $560,000 grant provided by the Department of the Interior but CHCC had to cover the remaining $342,301.<\/p>\n

Mu\u00f1a earlier said that a project like this should have happened long ago, especially for a 30-year-old healthcare facility that needs more renovations. Additionally, with CHCC saving an estimate of $700,000 yearly, it would give them a chance to pay for other medical services as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After nearly a year of construction, the first phase of the Commonwealth Health Center\u2019s solar…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":329581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[91,50],"class_list":["post-329580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-chc","tag-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}