Application of Solar Energy Technology in Green Healthcare Camps for Fighting COVID-19 Outbreak in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The healthcare facilities sector is an energy-intensive organization especially at a time of spreading dangerous infectious viruses, such as new Coronavirus, or what is known as COVID-19. Recently, many countries have opened several mobile field quarantine hospitals provided with the required technical equipment to prevent the COVID-19 outbreak in these countries. Unfortunately, most of these healthcare camps are lacking in the application of the necessary sustainability principles and health standards to become green healthcare facilities. Solar energy can be used for various purposes in green healthcare facilities, such as power generation and other sterilized applications. Therefore, in the present paper, a new design for the mobile, quick built, and solar-powered green healthcare camp, in safe and effective 24 hours a day services, is introduced. The proposed green healthcare camp is built using modern building technologies for rapid constructions, in which the building design is proposed to incorporate the photovoltaic power generation consideration. Photovoltaic systems are designed according to the loads required for the operation of the designed model of the green healthcare camp. Moreover, the total cost of a solar-powered green healthcare camp is estimated according to local conditions and standards in Saudi Arabia. The practical recommendations are presented with the designed photovoltaic system to attain the overcurrent and overvoltage protection. The photovoltaic designed system is proposed under the condition of ascertaining the service continuity of the photovoltaic power system during the electric faults in the photovoltaic strings. This is achieved by incorporating series diodes at the terminals of each photovoltaic string. The performance of a 50-kW PV system simulated using Matlab/Simulink is evaluated for the fault disturbance to enhance the service continuity.