Without power, critical health services can’t be provided – lifesaving medicines go bad, electronic health records can’t be accessed, essential medical equipment can’t be powered, and vital community health facilities serving the most vulnerable shut down. This single initiative addresses health equity, the need for renewable energy, and community resiliency.
The Issue
- Frequent, devastating extreme weather events lead to an increase in power outages.
- With healthcare systems’ growing dependence on power for treatment and records, thousands go without care when the power goes out.
The Impact on Health
- More than 32 million people rely on free and charitable clinics and community health centers.
- More than 14,000 community health centers and free and charitable clinic sites provide primary health care, prescription medications, chronic disease management, and more.
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100% of your donation will support the Power for Health resilient power program.
The Challenges
Power is Essential
- Modern healthcare relies on continuous power.
- Years of record-setting emergencies have resulted in extended power shut-offs, leaving thousands without care.
Impacts of Outages
- Lifesaving medicines go bad
- Essential medical equipment is inoperable
- Electronic health records are inaccessible
- Health clinics close their doors
Overwhelmed Hospitals
- Hospital systems rely on community health centers and free clinics to serve non-emergency needs.
- When clinics and centers lose power, hospitals get overwhelmed, placing communities at risk.
Costs of Unreliable Power
- Average of 52 hours without power after a disaster
- Outages disrupt medical care, equipment, temperature control
- Spoiled medicine can cost health centers and clinics thousands of dollars.
The Solution: Resilient Power
Direct Relief’s Power for Health Initiative seeks to bring clean, renewable backup power to community health centers and free clinics to ensure they can deliver critical healthcare services during power outages.
The initiative provides grants to these centers and clinics for the installation of off-grid, renewable, reliable power systems, improving resiliency and continuity of care for critical health services in vulnerable communities.
Consistent power affords continuity of critical care, the protection of expensive and vital medicine, and ensures access to health records. Taken together, resilient power results in better health outcomes for those served.
Benefits to Health Centers
Solar energy and battery storage systems generate and store clean, efficient, renewable power. Health centers that have these systems will automatically tap into their solar energy systems when they experience disruptions in electrical grid power for any reason, allowing them to seamlessly maintain power during an outage.
These systems bring health centers multiple types of benefits:
Resilience: pairing solar with battery storage allows solar energy to be deployed as a backup power source in the event of an outage. Solar energy and battery storage systems allow health centers to prepare for, withstand, and recover quickly from grid disruptions while maintaining a reliable energy supply.
Sustainability: each kilowatt-hour of solar that is generated will substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions like CO2, enhancing the health center’s environmental sustainability.
Cost Savings: health centers will pocket savings in the form of lower monthly utility bills because solar energy production partially offets their rates of energy consumption from the grid.
Power for health programs
U.S. Program
The U.S. Power for Health Program provides grants to community health centers and free and charitable clinics to design, build, operate, and maintain resilient power solutions that strengthen their resilience. The program has more than 50 solar, battery, or solar and battery microgrid projects completed or underway in nine U.S. states and in Puerto Rico, with plans for expansion in 2025.
U.S. Tribal Program
In 2024, Direct Relief launched the U.S. Tribal Power for Health Program, which provides grants to tribal health centers on sovereign Native American territories and urban clinics across the U.S. The initiative has funded solar and battery microgrids for Native American-serving clinics in Alaska, Arizona, Montana, and Utah, with more states and grantees to be announced in the coming year.
International Program
Direct Relief’s International Program spans health clinics across the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Major projects include the donation and installation of batteries in Ukraine to support their health system in enduring targeted attacks on the grid, reliable power and medical oxygen projects at hospitals in West Africa, and microgrids at village health centers in the Philippines.
DIRECT RELIEF’S GLOBAL RESILIENT POWER PROJECTS
U.S. POWER FOR HEALTH PROJECT DASHBOARD
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partnership spotlight
Direct Relief is seeking philanthropic partners to join the Power for Health initiative to collectively provide reliable power to more healthcare facilities in the US, leading to improved and more equitable health for individuals and families who are struggling every day.
