NET ZERO
As hospitals electrify, one of the most important questions may become not simply how much renewable electricity an estate can generate, but how much electricity its infrastructure can import, distribute, generate, store, and control.
Protected parking, clean energy: a new generation of NHS car parks.
across larger estates. There is no single model appropriate for every organisation. The important point is that technical and financial
strategies should not be developed independently. Understanding energy consumption, future demand, project economics, and estate priorities can help organisations determine not only what infrastructure should be delivered, but when and how it should be funded. A long-term estate strategy can also identify opportunities that are technically worthwhile today but may be better delivered in a later phase.
Jo Lees
Jo brings a strong background in marketing and hospitality to her role at RenEnergy, shaped by 25 years of working with people, communication, and service. She works closely with clients and RenEnergy’s teams, combining a personal, responsive approach with a focus on developing opportunities and building lasting relationships.
Avoiding today’s solution becoming tomorrow’s constraint Some of the most important decisions affecting a hospital’s future energy potential can be made years before a solar panel, battery, or EV charger is installed. A new building, refurbishment, or car park redesign creates an opportunity to consider future electrical requirements before additional demand arrives. Roof orientation and structural capacity can influence future solar deployment. Car park geometry can make solar carports and charging infrastructure easier or more difficult to introduce. Cable routes, substations, and switchgear can affect subsequent projects, while reserving suitable space for potential energy storage may avoid difficult retrofitting decisions later. Futureproofing does not require estates teams to predict precisely which technologies will be required in twenty years. It means recognising the likely direction of travel and avoiding today’s infrastructure decisions unnecessarily limiting tomorrow’s options. The risk for healthcare estates is not necessarily under- investment in electrification. It is investing in individual solutions without understanding how they will eventually need to operate as one electrical system.
Delivery matters as much as design Hospitals are safety-critical environments where construction frequently takes place alongside uninterrupted clinical operations. Our experience at Scunthorpe and Grimsby demonstrates why operational context needs to form part of project design from the outset. Access arrangements, temporary parking changes, pedestrian routes, deliveries, lifting operations, working hours, noise, emergency routes, and stakeholder communication all become part of the engineering challenge.
100 Health Estate Journal October 2026
Renewable energy infrastructure within healthcare estates therefore cannot be assessed purely according to installed capacity or theoretical financial return. How the project is engineered, phased, and delivered matters. The same applies after commissioning. Solar PV, batteries, and charging infrastructure are long-term assets. Monitoring, maintenance, and asset management can identify faults and underperformance while providing data about how infrastructure is performing against its original assumptions. That becomes particularly valuable as the estate evolves. A hospital’s electricity profile five or ten years after installation may look very different as EV charging, electrified heating, refurbishments, and new clinical technology alter demand. Commissioning should therefore be considered the beginning of an asset’s operational life, rather than the end of the energy strategy.
From renewable projects to energy infrastructure There is no universal renewable energy configuration for an NHS Trust. A large acute hospital has different requirements from a community hospital, specialist facility, or neighbourhood health centre. Roof space, parking, electrical infrastructure, grid capacity, operating patterns, development plans, and investment priorities all vary. What is increasingly common is the direction of travel. Healthcare is becoming more electrified. Transport is moving towards zero emissions. Decarbonisation is influencing estate planning, while reliable electricity remains fundamental to clinical care. The next phase of NHS decarbonisation will therefore not simply be about installing more renewable technology. It will increasingly be about designing an electrical estate capable of accommodating more generation, more storage, and more electrical demand while maintaining the reliability on which clinical services depend. That requires a shift from individual renewable projects towards long-term energy infrastructure planning. Solar PV, solar carports, BESS, and EV charging all have roles to play. Their greatest value, however, may come when estates teams understand how those technologies interact with each other, with existing electrical infrastructure and with future demand. The hospital of the future will ask electricity to do
more. Preparing for it means understanding tomorrow’s demand before making today’s infrastructure decisions.
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