Meccanica Magazine n. 4

ENG
RESTART Health: Renewable Energy Systems To Activate
Recovery Through the Health sector
RESTART Health – Renewable Energy Systems To Activate Recovery
Through the Health sector is among the winners of the latest
edition of the Polisocial Award, financed with a budget of 100.000
€. The Polisocial Award initiative is financed with funds from the 5
per thousand of IRPEF and supports the development of scientific
research with high social impact of the Politecnico di Milano. The
theme of the 2021 edition was “Equity and Recovery”.
The project supports the mission of the St. Mary’s Hospital Lacor
(LH), located in the city of Gulu in Uganda, which is to provide
affordable health care to all and fight disease and poverty.
Healthcare facilities in sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries are
under stress due to the continuous growing populations and the
emergence of infectious diseases such as the recent Ebola and
COVID-19 crises. These conditions, with the uneven distribution
of healthcare accessibility, the limited public health financial
resources and the limited access to energy often make the
health sector in SSA unreliable. Lack of access to electricity or its
unreliability means that health infrastructures SSA are unable to
provide the communities with adequate services, especially with
the COVID-19 pandemic due to increased admissions and stays in
the intensive care units. A lack of lighting prevents 24h operations,
unreliable power supply can make cold-chain activities inoperable
or damage medical equipment, while a limited power capacity can
prevent the utilization of modern machineries. In this framework,
the main objective is to enforce the health system creating a holistic
and integrated approach for the health infrastructures in SSA
increasing the reliability and to enlarging the accessibility to the
service for vulnerable communities. In particular, the project aims
to ensuring a more reliable and appropriate energy system providing
instruments for the efficient management of hybrid microgrid
systems for health infrastructures in islanded and grid connected
conditions promoting the development of related activities and
local entrepreneurship by developing:
1) Conceptualization of healthcare facilities as community energy
service providers. The output is the development of guidelines for
optimal energy usage. In the LH the focus will be on:
- cold chain development for food, vaccines and medicines
conservation purposes;
- electrical and thermal energy efficiency interventions;
- e-cooking for workers, patients and visitors meals preparation;
- e-mobility solution within the Hospital area and in the close
sorrounding.
2) Protocols and platforms for energy-system monitoring to improve
knowledge and promote replicability of technical interventions
and long-term sustainability. Guidelines for similar contexts
and suggestions to policy-makers on the improvement of the
national and regional regulatory framework for grid-tied health
infrastructures.
3) Effective tools for the microgrid energy management, compatible
with the needs of healthcare infrastructures (e.g. high quality and
low interruptions), focusing on:
- Load shifting strategies to supply prioritized loads,
- Optimal management of energy resources to minimize impact of
outages.
4) Design an holistic system to connect and reinforce the different
services (as hospital, residentials, school, cooperatives….)
5) Social and sustainable business models able to promote a local
micro-entrepreneurship to manage the energy systems, the
promotion of distributed generation and of community services.
The mentioned objectives address the short, medium and long-term
needs for health service in terms of energy access and reliability,
ensuring an adequate quality of healthcare and access to services
to the most vulnerable population (rural areas and suburban
settlements), and the opportunity to have a reliable and sustainable
health system in the long term. The Department of Mechanical
Engineering is involved in the project thanks to Prof. Marco Mauri, who
is part of the team along with Prof. Irene Bengo and Prof. Veronica
Chiodo from the Department of Management Engineering. The team
is lead by the Prof. Riccardo Mereu, Project Manager, and Prof. Marco
Melo, Head Scientific Officer, from the Department of Energy.
meccanica magazine
97