Innovation fund project – Motueka Community Hospital

The Motueka Community Hospital Block is a new 46 bed aged-care facility on the existing Motueka Hospital site that has a project cost of approximately $5 million. It was officially opened on 20 June 2009 by the Hon Dr Nick Smith, who is an original trustee for the project.

The hospital received a grant from EECA's Solar Hot Water Heating Innovation Fund to install solar water heating (SWH) into the new facility. The project design includes six separate SWH systems, with a total panel area of 48m2 (as compared to 3.5m2 for an average residential installation), which is forecast to save 50-60% of the water heating costs.

The SWH system include monitoring equipment which will be used to gather energy data to support the future design and replication of systems for other hospitals and facilities with high hot water demand.