Case Study – CrescentCare Community Health Center

When Hurricane Ida landed in Louisiana in August 2021, it decimated the area’s energy infrastructure. Over 1 million residents lost power, some for weeks, with outages impacting everything from communications to transportation. CrescentCare, a Federally Qualified Health Center in New Orleans, was forced to close when their backup diesel generators failed to come online. Residents in need of medical care had to choose between waiting for emergency support or traveling to already inundated hospitals. The prolonged power outage resulted in over $250,000 in losses for the health center, and an additional $750,000 in losses for their partner pharmacy. Knowing another power outage was inevitable, CrescentCare began working towards ensuring reliable backup power.

This case study highlights CrescentCare’s journey to installing solar and battery storage. The St. Roch CrescentCare Community Health Center’s solar+storage project, commissioned in March 2024, provides a number of facility and community benefits, including backup power, utility bill savings, and avoided costs associated with power outages. Within the first month of the system’s operation, New Orleans experienced a 2-hour grid outage. The solar+storage system performed as expected, serving the health center’s entire load and resulting in no essential losses or interruptions in care.