Eastern Kentucky Hospital Invests in Solar Energy

A hospital in eastern Kentucky is the state’s first medical facility to get part of its energy from solar panels. Rockcastle Regional Hospital is generating enough electricity to power its entire third floor.There are 210 solar panels on the roof of the hospital, and the panels been producing electricity for the past month. The electricity is sold to Kentucky Utilities, and appears as a credit on the hospital’s utility bill.Rockcastle CEO Stephen Estes says using renewable energy for part of the hospital was a small thing the hospital could do to decrease its environmental footprint.“Hospitals are big users, as you well know, of utilities and water and electric and we also create a lot of waste, medical waste,” he said. So I thought our perspective would be that we would see if anybody in this community could go green, the hospital should lead the way.”Estes says the hospital invested about $250,000 on the project, and the panels should generate that much in energy savings by 2021.