Kaiser Permanente plans to increase its solar capacity with installations in Hawaii and at Oakland Medical Center in California and Hidden Lake Medical Offices in Colorado, according to an article on the Healthcare Finance News website.

In July, Kaiser Permanente announced a program to install on-site solar at more than 100 hospitals. It installed solar panels at 13 locations in 2011. With a generation capacity of 11.3 megawatts, these arrays generated the energy equivalent of the electricity use of about 1, 200 average American homes each year.

The health system is looking into adding as much as 40 megawatts of solar power capacity with on-site installations at dozens of medical campuses and other locations throughout California.

Kaiser Permanente is ranked as the #2 commercial solar user in the U.S. health and beauty sector by Solar Energy Institutions Association (and 13th among all companies), the article said.

Read the article.