Winters Healthcare Installs 57 kW Solar and 220 kWh Microgrid
- Healthcare Facilities Microgrids News
Marin Holt
- 0
- 6 minutes read
- Winters Healthcare is a federally qualified health center in Winters, Yolo County, California, serving 4,500+ patients annually, primarily agricultural workers.
- System: 57 kW solar array, 220 kWh lithium-ion battery, 200 kW emergency generator; developed by American Microgrid Solutions, installed by GRID Alternatives.
- Fully funded by a $534,938 Direct Relief Power for Health Initiative grant covering design, installation, and 5 years of O&M.
- Provides 17+ continuous hours of backup power for critical clinical operations during grid outages.
- Annual savings ~$40,000; annual carbon avoided ~62 metric tons (equivalent to preserving 75 acres of forest).
Winters Healthcare, a federally qualified health center in Yolo County, California, commissioned a new Solar-Battery microgrid in December 2025 that provides more than 17 hours of backup power during grid outages. Direct Relief funded the entire $534,938 project under its Power for Health Initiative, covering design, installation, and five years of operations and maintenance.
Critical Perspective
The $534,938 total project cost for a 57 kW solar array and 220 kWh battery equates to roughly $9,400 per kilowatt of solar capacity, more than double the $3,000 to $4,500 per kilowatt benchmark for commercial-scale solar-plus-storage installations, reflecting the premium of designing a healthcare-grade microgrid with extended backup capability. The 17-hour backup duration assumes partial clinical load; running the full facility, including HVAC and all medical equipment, would drain the 220 kWh battery considerably faster. Direct Relief’s grant covers five years of operations and maintenance, but year-six costs fall on a federally qualified health center that serves a predominantly agricultural community with limited capital reserves. Battery capacity degradation over a 10-year period reduces backup duration progressively, with no disclosed funded replacement plan.
What Was Built
The system pairs a 57 kW rooftop solar array with a 220 kWh lithium-ion battery and a 200 kW backup generator. American Microgrid Solutions developed the project; GRID Alternatives, a nonprofit solar installer, completed the physical installation.
The battery and solar combination is sized to offset nearly half of the facility’s annual electricity consumption, projecting roughly $40,000 per year in energy cost savings for the health center. During a grid outage, the system runs critical clinical loads, including medical, dental, behavioral health, and pharmacy services, for more than 17 continuous hours without grid power.
The project is the 25th completed resilient power installation under Direct Relief’s Power for Health Initiative, which has funded 21 safety-net facilities across California and dozens more across the continental United States and Puerto Rico.
Why It Matters
Winters Healthcare serves more than 4,500 patients annually, the majority of them agricultural workers in rural Yolo County. The facility provides primary care, dental, behavioral health, and pharmacy services to populations that have limited alternatives nearby. Extended outages, increasingly common during California wildfire season, cut off access to these services entirely under the previous grid-only configuration.
The health center is designated part of Yolo County’s Emergency Response Plan, giving it a secondary role as a triage site, shelter, or emergency care provider during regional disasters. Without backup power, that emergency function disappears when it is most needed.
The microgrid avoids approximately 62 metric tons of carbon emissions per year, equivalent, according to Direct Relief, to preserving 75 acres of forest annually. The project also demonstrates a financing model that has become more relevant as federal grant programs for clean energy at healthcare facilities have retrenched: a private nonprofit covering 100 percent of costs, including long-term maintenance, for a safety-net provider that could not otherwise finance the project independently.
