Tahiti, July 8, 2022 – The Taaone Hospital Center Swac has been supplying the hospital’s air conditioning network since this week. The acceptance of the works was certified on Friday morning and marks the culmination of 10 years of development of an ambitious and innovative project, above all placing French Polynesia at the world forefront of this renewable energy technology.
This time it’s the right one. Since the beginning of the week, the hospital’s seawater air conditioning system – the famous “Swac” – has been in service and supplies the air conditioning of the French Polynesia Hospital Center. On Friday morning, the acceptance of the works was certified by a bailiff without technical reservations. The order for the assignment of Swac to the Hospital Center has been published. And all that remained was to sign the agreement relating to the payment of financial compensation of 110 million XPF linked to the use of the system by the hospital.
350 million savings for the CHPF
The culmination of several years of a long and ambitious project, this third Swac in French Polynesia -after those of the InterContinental in Bora Bora and the Brando in Tetiaroa- is by far the most efficient. It allows, by drawing cold water from the depths off the bay of Taaone, to cool the vast and expensive network of 1,600 air conditioners of the Pirae Hospital Center. “The SWAC allows, with very low energy consumption, to put in thermal contact the cold sea water and the fresh water of the air conditioning network, through a millefeuille of titanium plates”summarized the engineer David Wary of the company Airaro, assistant to the project owner, in the columns of the newspaper The world fin 2021.
On the financial side, the operation will pay off big for the CHPF. The public establishment consumes an average of 800 to 900 million XPF of electricity per year and will see its annual bill reduced by 350 million XPF thanks to renewable energy, with 60% savings from the first year. To the 110 million XPF of financial compensation for 30 years, linked to the use of the structure, the Hospital Center will have to add nearly 2 million XPF of electricity per month to operate the installation.
On the power side, the Swac currently represents 10 GWh of electricity consumption. And could even in the future rise to 13 GWh by supplying the future Center 15 and Jean Prince psychiatric hospital. But above all, it represents a total of 2% of renewable energies in the overall electricity consumption of the island of Tahiti (500 GWh). Enough to substantially increase the share of renewables in French Polynesia’s energy mix, and bring it closer to its objectives of 75% renewable energy in 2030.
A 10 year project
If the premises of this project go back a few years before 2010, the decision of the Country to build the Swac of the Hospital Center was officially taken in 2012. It will therefore have taken nearly 10 years of administrative authorizations, appeals, setting up significant financing terms – and more recently a few months of delays on the construction site – for the project to see the light of day. A project costing 3.6 billion XPF, which can therefore be made profitable in 15 to 18 years over the 30 years of provision of the hospital… But above all, Polynesia finally holds its flagship of innovation, life-size , in terms of renewable energy. And on this point the country can boast, with a particularly favorable environment for this type of solution, of being at the world forefront of innovative technology. And now fully functional.
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