From June to September, it’s tough to know if some of the Chiricahua Community Health Centers will have electricity. Powerful summer thunderstorms that erupt during monsoon season and barrel across the desert often knock power offline. It happened 25 times in one year alone. 

The health center serves 35,000 patients across more than 6,200 square miles in rural Cochise County, AZ. When power is lost, refrigerated medications can be compromised, electronic health records are inaccessible, and staff are unable to field calls. 

“From an operational perspective, we need constant power,” Dennis Walto, Chiricahua’s chief External Affairs Officer, said. “We cannot afford to go down. Having adequate and reliable power for a health center is essential.”

While at a conference, one of Walto’s colleagues convinced him to explore solar solutions. It was during that conversation that Walto learned about the economic benefits available through the Inflation Reduction Act, legislation signed into law by President Biden. Walto learned the potential upside of solar energy for the health center.

The Inflation Reduction Act has invested more than $1 billion in clean energy projects, creating jobs and lowering costs for nearly 7,000 farms and small businesses in rural areas. Chiricahua Community Health Centers, Inc. is a federally qualified health center, a network of clinics that provides care to anyone who needs it regardless of their ability to pay. Walto realized the health center’s effort to improve its resiliency and lower energy costs could benefit from the legislation.

“There are opportunities through the Inflation Reduction Act and other incentives to bring a new, renewable power source to health clinics around the country. If not us, who? If not now, when?” Walto said.

Working with the solar solutions company Collective Energy, Chiricahua Community Health Centers decided to move forward with solar installations at its five-building campus in Douglas, a rural town that has a border crossing with Mexico. Collective Energy managed the grant process and will receive an Investment Tax Credit (ITC), made available through the Inflation Reduction Act. The ITC allows businesses and some tax-exempt entities to receive a 30% dollar-for-dollar federal income tax credit against the cost of renewable energy investments.

The credit, coupled with depreciation, allows Collective Energy to reduce the overall cost of the system for Chiricahua. 

“We’re looking at Douglas as our bellwether so to speak,” Walto said, noting that the panels are scheduled to be installed in May. “If it can work here, it can work anywhere.”

The next solar installation target for Chiricahua is its facility in Willcox, a small town that is home to about 3,000 people. Should the Douglas beta test work well, the goal is to have the installation complete in time for the 2026 monsoon season.

The installations not only bolster crucial energy resilience against storms, but they also save the organization thousands of dollars a month in electric bills. Walto said those savings are vital, since a number of the public health programs the center offers end up being unbillable. 

“Every dollar we save in electricity is a dollar we can invest in an outreach worker going to a seasonal farmworker field to deliver well checks. It really is a dollar for dollar,” Walto said. “The impact, at the end of the day, is that the service dollar becomes exponential because you’re providing healthcare and it reduces the burden of disease. That dollar spent in the farm field goes a lot further than the dollar spent on electricity.”