Energy Solutions for Senior Living & Care
Senior living and care runs on a continuous, high-demand energy load and a fixed reimbursement model, an unusual combination that most energy providers aren’t built to address. Here’s how Catalyst approaches it.
The continuous heating, cooling, and hot water demand.
Overall efficiency v. 50% for grid electricity plus a gas boiler.
Upfront capital under Catalyst’s long-term Energy Services Agreement.
Partner for supply, onsite generation, operations & maintenance.
Why Is Senior Living & Care’s Energy Problem Unique?
Facilities operate 24/7, 365 days a year, with continuous electricity, heating, cooling, and hot water demand. At the same time, reimbursement rates are largely fixed, so rising energy costs come straight off the operating margin rather than getting passed through. Add in infrastructure that’s often decades old, and capital that could fund an upgrade is the same capital competing with staffing and resident care.
Rising Energy Costs Come Straight Out of the Margin
Electricity and natural gas prices move. Reimbursement rates mostly do not. Every increase in utility spend lands on the operating margin instead of getting passed through. Commercial electricity rates in New England ran 74% above the national average in March 2026, and Mid-Atlantic rates 35% above, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Procurement structured around your facility’s consumption history and budget priorities, so the number your finance team plans around holds.
Aging Infrastructure Competes with Resident Care for Capital
Boilers, chillers, and older CHP units stay in service long after their reliability and economics have changed. Replacing or repowering that equipment takes capital that is already committed to staffing, resident care, and other facility priorities.
Catalyst funds, owns, and operates qualifying replacements and repowers. The upgrade happens without a capital request.
24/7 Demand, 365 Days A Year
Heating, cooling, ventilation, hot water, kitchens, laundry, medication refrigeration, and clinical spaces never shut off. To meet CMS regulations, eligible facilities need to keep resident areas between 71 and 81°F year-round. That load profile is why CHP fits senior living facilities better than almost any other building type.
Onsite generation sized to your base load, with recovered heat covering space heating and domestic hot water.
Three Solutions, Evaluated Together
Most senior living facilities shop for a better supply rate, push the boiler replacement out another year, and leave the largest opportunity untouched. Here’s a better way.
Retail Electricity & Gas
Custom-priced supply products built around your facility’s consumption history, so utility spend becomes a number you budget against instead of a variable you react to. Switching completes by the end of the next full billing cycle.
Commercial electricity & gas →Onsite CHP (Cogeneration)
A natural gas engine generates electricity onsite, and the recovered heat supplies space heating and domestic hot water. Senior living’s round-the-clock thermal demand makes it one of the strongest fits for combined heat and power.
Cogeneration →Infrastructure Upgrades & Financing
Have aging boilers, chillers, or other critical infrastructure coming due for replacement? Catalyst can finance eligible infrastructure upgrades as part of a CHP project, bundling new energy assets with the capital improvements your facility already needs.
How the no-capital model works →Lower Energy Costs Today. Modern Infrastructure for the Long Term.
Senior living and care operators should not have to choose between managing this year’s energy costs and replacing a 20-year-old boiler. The four steps below happen under one agreement, with one point of accountability.
Optimize energy spend today
Catalyst analyzes your meter data and consumption history, then secures electricity and natural gas supply structured around your load and budget priorities. Nothing changes with the utility that maintains your lines, poles, and meters.
Built for Your Facility and Your Portfolio
Whether you operate one building or a multi-property portfolio, the approach adapts to the facility. Each solution is sized to the site, with the goal of lowering energy costs, modernizing infrastructure, and keeping capital where it belongs.
Skilled Nursing Facilities
Clinical spaces, medication refrigeration, kitchens, laundry, and round-the-clock heating, cooling, and hot water create the continuous load profile that makes CHP and onsite generation pay.
Independent & Assisted Living
Resident comfort depends on stable temperatures and reliable hot water at every hour. Predictable demand supports onsite generation, and consistent temperature control matters most in memory care units.
Continuing Care Campuses & Portfolios
Multi-building campuses with central plants seeking decentralization, and owners with several properties, get a facility-by-facility evaluation and a portfolio view of procurement, infrastructure, and cost.
Repowered CHP For a Skilled Nursing and Assisted Living Campus
A senior living and care campus in Long Island, New York, serves more than 350 people a day across a 250-bed skilled nursing facility and a 100-bed assisted living community. Its onsite energy infrastructure was aging, and its capital was already committed to resident care.
Catalyst repowered two 75 kW CHP units, integrated a supporting radiator system, and routed recovered heat to space heating and domestic hot water, all under a long-term Energy Services Agreement with no upfront capital from the operator.
Senior Living & Care Energy Management, Answered
Start with the two largest line items: what you pay for supply, and how efficiently the building turns fuel into heat and power. Procurement structured around your actual load stabilizes the supply side. Onsite CHP raises efficiency from roughly 50% for grid power plus a boiler to up to 90%, because the heat that would be wasted goes into space heating and hot water. Neither changes the environment residents live in, only what it costs to maintain it.
Usually, yes. The best candidates run long hours, carry a steady electrical base load, have a natural gas connection, and need heat and hot water year-round for uses like laundry, kitchens, showers, or pools. A typical 50 to 100 kW system needs about 200 square feet of mechanical space. Catalyst’s candidate checklist covers the full list.
Catalyst designs, finances, installs, owns, and operates the system under a long-term Energy Services Agreement. You buy the electricity and heat it produces at a fixed discount to the utility rate. Operations and maintenance stay with Catalyst. Nothing lands on your balance sheet as a capital project because Catalyst owns the equipment.
No. The utility remains responsible for the lines, poles, and meters. Catalyst supplies the energy and, where applicable, the onsite system.
Catalyst’s CHP installations typically take 6 to 12 months from agreement signing to an operating system. CHP timelines depend on site conditions, gas service, and the existing plant. The initial evaluation sets the schedule for your facility.
Catalyst Power is an independent energy solutions provider and retail supplier based in New York. Nursing homes, assisted living communities, and continuing care campuses across the Northeast are modernizing energy infrastructure with Catalyst at no upfront cost.
Go Deeper
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See What an Integrated Energy Strategy Could Do for Your Facility
A short conversation covers your facility’s energy profile, existing infrastructure, and where the opportunity to reduce cost is. No commitment, no capital.