Integrating health into techno-economic assessment for solar-powered hospital water systems

Healthcare facilities face increasing challenges in maintaining reliable water and energy supplies, with direct implications for patient safety and operational costs. However, conventional techno-economic assessment (TEA) approaches primarily evaluate financial performance and often exclude health-related impacts, limiting their relevance in healthcare decision-making. This study addresses this gap by developing a Health-Adjusted Techno-Economic Assessment (H-TEA) framework that integrates economic metrics with quantified health-related benefits, including avoided healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs), service continuity, and patient outcomes. The framework is applied through a model-based case study of a representative hospital system, in which system performance, costs, and health outcomes are estimated from secondary data and scenario analysis. Results indicate that the inclusion of health-related benefits is associated with a substantially higher estimated net value than traditional TEA under baseline assumptions. Payback periods are reduced from approximately 14 years to around 4 years when health benefits are incorporated. Solar nanofiltration systems demonstrate favourable performance, achieving approximately 99.7% pathogen removal at an energy consumption of 1.2 kWh/m³ within the model framework. Sensitivity analysis shows that reductions in infection rates and energy prices are the most influential parameters affecting economic outcomes, highlighting the importance of context-specific inputs. Overall, the findings suggest that incorporating health-related benefits into techno-economic evaluation can significantly influence investment decisions in healthcare infrastructure; however, the results depend on modelling assumptions and require validation in real-world settings.