Australia pilots world’s first solar powered dialysis unit 8 November 2010 The German health care company, Fresenius Medical Care and Barwon Health, Victoria, have piloted the world’s first solar powered dialysis unit at Geelong Hospital. The new unit is programmed to offset the energy consumption of dialysis treatments with renewable and clean energy. “Dialysis is the most water and power-hungry of any individual medical therapy,” said Associate Professor John Agar, the Director of Renal Services at Barwon Health. “With cheap and simple recycling practices, we now save and re-use the majority of the water required by the dialysis process, while our solar program, by generating more power than is required for dialysis alone, will generate an ongoing grid-reimbursed income for the dialysis service,” Professor Agar said. Dialysis has an increasing impact on the environment because of its water and electricity consumption. Each dialysis patient treatment uses more than 400 litres of water and 6 kWh of electricity. By adding clean and renewable solar energy as its power source, Geelong Hospital will become the world’s first true Green Dialysis program, thereby helping to reduce the overall carbon footprint of the treatment. Professor Agar has been invited to present on this project at the American Dialysis Conference in Phoenix in 2011, as well as presenting his Green Dialysis program at international meetings in Denver and Vancouver. “Green Dialysis has been born in Australia,” said Professor Agar. “It is something we are very proud of and which we believe will go internationally and become a benchmark for dialysis around the world to follow.” Fresenius Group, which is listed on the Frankfurt and New York stock exchanges, is a leading provider of products and services for people undergoing dialysis because of chronic kidney failure, a condition that affects more than 1.89 million people globally. More information |