State has started equipping its hospitals with solar panels in a bid to combat power outages, which have led to casualties in several hospitals across India during the Covid-19 pandemic, officials said on Monday.

The Jharkhand Renewable Energy Development Agency (JREDA) has identified about 1400 Government buildings, including Sadar hospitals, Community Healthcare Centres (CHCs) and Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs), for the project, said JREDA project director Vijay Kumar Sinha.

However, the agency will focus on healthcare centres in the first phase of the scheme in a bid to ensure uninterrupted power supplies to hospitals in case a third wave of Covid-19 hits Jharkhand, Sinha added. “Ensuring uninterrupted power supply to hospitals was a priority for us especially during this pandemic,” said Sinha.

Health officials in Jharkhand observed during the Covid crisis that uninterrupted power supply was a prerequisite for storing medicines at lower than room temperature and treating severely-ill patients. JREDA and health department jointly decided to install 2-4 KiloWatt solar panels in each of the CHCs and PHCs to at least store medicines and vaccines, an official said.  

Sources from JREDA said that rooftop solar panels have already been installed in more than 700 of the identified 1400 government buildings and the remaining buildings are also likely to be equipped with solar power within the next six months or so.

JREDA is also developing a software through which it will be able to monitor the functioning of all the solar panels across the state. Microchips will be installed in each of the solar panels, which will help JREDA engineers identify any glitch in the system without having to move to the location, officials said.

Several casualties were reported in hospitals due to power outage in different states, including Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and Punjab, earlier this year. Mostly, patients on ventilators could not survive power cuts in these government-run hospitals, as per media reports.

While no such incidents were reported in Jharkhand during the first and the second wave of Covid-19, the government has been focusing on improving the power supply to various hospitals in order to prevent any such accident, an official from the health department said.

Once the hospitals are powered by solar energy, JREDA will start focusing on other government buildings like police stations and residential hostels, JREDA Director KK Verma said.

The JREDA has also floated tenders for installing solar panels in at least five airports in Jharkhand, including the Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi.