More than Energy Savings: Why Your School Should Go Solar

Written by Stefan Johnson, SEI AmeriCorps VISTA

In Western Colorado, where Solar Energy International (SEI) is headquartered, we’ve been applying our industry-leading technical training to the education of the next generation. Most of the 65,000 individuals who have received our training have been adults,  but we’re increasing our impact with younger demographics by partnering with high schools.

SEI launched the High School Solar Career and Technical Pathway program in Delta County during a period of economic distress following the closure of two local coal-mines. Since the program’s launch in 2015, we’ve given hands-on education and training to over 90 students at two high schools. The high school offering is based off of PV101: Solar Training – Solar Electric Design and Installation (Grid-Direct), SEI’s most popular course for individuals looking to enter the solar energy field. Students who complete the course are eligible to receive the same industry-recognized Record of Completion as adults. Many of these high school students have gone on to study STEM in higher education or pursue jobs and internships in the solar and electric trades. At Paonia High School, students even had the opportunity to help install a 10 kW system at their school in the May of 2018.

Now, thanks to an innovative partnership with our local utility, Delta Montrose Electric Association (DMEA), we have big goals for expanding the program in 2019. DMEA is using their unclaimed capital credits to finance the installation of nearly 50 kWs of solar spread across five high schools to take place this coming spring. After learning about solar PV systems via SEI’s curriculum, students will once again be encouraged to apply their knowledge and participate in the installations of the systems.

Around the country, more and more schools are installing solar photovoltaic (PV) systems on their campuses and rooftops. According to a recent report, there were 5,489 K-12 schools that had gone solar in the United States at the end of 2017, and that number has surely grown as we enter 2019. It wasn’t so long ago that one frequently heard complaints about the cost of environmentalism, but now, thanks to economies of scale and technology improvements, schools going solar are actually SAVING money. Beyond the pure financial and environmental benefits, however, there are many other advantages for schools to go solar. Solar PV systems can offer teachers and students an invaluable educational tool and hands-on resource for learning about math, physics, engineering, technology, and environmental sciences.

The Brighter Future; A Study on Solar in U.S. Schools report was jointly published by the Solar Energy Industries Association, The Solar Foundation, and Generation 180  in November, 2017 and found that the number of schools going solar was increasingly rapidly. According to the report, the total energy capacity for solar on K-12 schools nearly doubled from 490 Megawatts (MWs) in 2014 to 980 MWs in 2017.  That is now is enough to to power more than 190,000 homes! The total number of schools with solar increased from 3,752 in 2014 to nearly 5,500 in 2017.

Savings are one strong incentive for schools to add solar to their buildings and campuses. The falling cost of solar PV means that going solar is increasingly viable from a financial perspective, and schools can now even see big on their energy bills. In the sunny Southwest, two high schools in Rio Rancho, NM realized over $700,000 in savings since they installed solar in 2013. Solar is even penciling out in colder, cloudier states; a 2017 project in New York is expected to save Warwick School District $250,000 annually, while another school in Illinois is expected to save more than $10 million over the lifetime of their solar project. These energy savings translate to a big environmental impact. The Brighter Future report estimated solar schools are offsetting one million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, or the equivalent emissions of over 200,000 cars! Regardless of the region, solar has the potential bring significant economic and environmental benefits to schools and their students

Schools are also increasingly taking advantage of the unique educational opportunity offered by onsite PV systems. Integrating solar energy into educational curriculum can help students develop valuable skills whether they pursue higher education or look to immediately enter the workforce. In a world that is increasingly automated and globally competitive, the solar industry is one of the most robust and fastest growing in the nation. There are already over 250,000 solar jobs in the country, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics projects Solar photovoltaic installer as the fastest growing occupation from 2016 through 2026.

All across the United States, schools are getting creative with how they add solar energy onto their building and into their classrooms. In Bozeman, Montana, Claire Vases used her independent study project to advocate for solar and spearheaded a campaign that raised over $100,000 to fund solar at Sacajawea Middle School. At Antelope Valley Union School District in California, students’ performance in science and math improved dramatically after incorporating real-time energy data and solar energy concepts from the school’s PV system into their lesson plans.  

Interested in learning more about SEI’s High School Solar Career and Technical Pathway program? Contact Americorps VISTA and Project Coordinator Stefan Johnson at stefan@solarenergy.org OR (717)-712-3742.

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Congratulations from SEI: Solar Access Team wins first place for innovative community solar business model

Solar Energy International wants to acknowledge and congratulate the Access Solar team for taking first place in the business model pitch competition, and second place in the business plan presentation competition, that represented the culmination of their work in Colorado State University’s Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise (GSSE) MBA program. The team is made up of four incredibly talented and driven women: Addison Arnold, Luciana Figliolo, Melody Redburn, and Aurora Sepp-Peterson. SEI was fortunate to be chosen by the team in April to act as an advisor in their development of a business model that aims to connect community solar project developers to customers.

As part of the research and development phase, SEI gave the GSSE team a scholarship to take the online PV101 class, and SEI hosted the students when they visited the Paonia campus in July for a week of in-person collaboration. SEI AmeriCorps VISTA Shane Sobotka led the team during the week of research, brainstorming, and meetings. The team visited the CSU Agricultural Research Station in Hotchkiss to discuss a potential utility-scale solar project with the station’s directors, met with board members and executives of Delta-Montrose Electric Association (DMEA) and other local utilities at DMEA’s Annual Meeting, toured a local development using the latest in sustainable building technology (including a 40kW community solar carport array), discussed used and recycled solar module markets with an SEI engineering partner, and learned about the future of community energy markets and blockchain with Nest Labs/Google and Drift Marketplace. The team even joined Paonia’s local ultimate frisbee group for a pickup game during their visit.

The team’s final business model focused on identifying, qualifying, and bringing together individuals that want access to solar power but are locked out of the current market because they don’t own their roofs. Access Solar bundles these customers as counterparties to power purchase agreements with solar project developers in compatible energy markets. All four women plan to continue working in the solar industry, and Solar Energy International is grateful for such educated allies in our mission to create a world powered by renewable energy, and it seems that the CSU judges agree!

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A letter of gratitude and warm wishes for the holiday season from SEI Executive Director Kathy Swartz

Dear Alumni and Friends,

Happy Solstice!

Winter has officially arrived in Colorado. While there are just a few patches of snow throughout our PV training campus in Paonia, the mountains are already deep in snow. There’s a cautious optimism that the snowpack will continue throughout the winter, which in spring and summer, provides water for drinking, irrigation for local farms, and outdoor adventures.

We often get asked the question, “So what do you do in the winter? Does SEI just shut down?” December is our busiest planning month of the year. As an organization, we just finalized our Strategic Plan and our 2019 budget, to be approved by our Board of Directors in January. Our Curriculum team is busy developing new training, including the next iteration of PV-specific OSHA training; new multimode and microgrid curriculum; and translating our PV202: Advanced PV System Design and the NEC into Spanish! Our Program Hispano and Middle East and Africa teams are busily mapping out the many trainings we’ll be offering in these regions. Our Student Services and Marketing teams are brainstorming new ways to improve the student experience.  Our Development team just wrapped up the annual end-of-year appeal. (Check your mailboxes!)

I’m so incredibly grateful for our board, staff, and instructors (we now number about 100!) who have made 2018 so successful. We’ve exceeded over 65,000 alumni who have taken training with us! We opened two international campuses (Oman and Costa Rica) to expand access to our training, launched the first PV-specific OSHA training (delivered for free to over 3000 of you), are helping to spread solar throughout rural Colorado through Solar Forward, launched a $2million capital campaign, and ensured that no person who wanted training was denied.

SEI’s success is a symptom of a much greater movement that’s happening across the world, and what is happening in Colorado demonstrates this.  Colorado has been the epicenter of a pivotal shift in the energy industry. From a groundbreaking announcement of the state’s largest utility moving to zero carbon emissions by 2050 followed by a municipal utility making a similar pledge, to a rural electric cooperative in the West asking state regulators to weigh in on a fair exit fee from their coal-heavy electricity supplier, the powerful moves made this week toward a future powered by renewable energy have the potential to reverberate impact across the country and the world.

SEI’s vision is complexly simple. We envision a world powered by renewable energy. As an organization we realize that it doesn’t matter to us why people come to us for training. Whether it’s a career change, to start a business, to combat global warming, to be self-reliant or to be on the cusp of a new technology. Renewable energy is neither Republican or Democrat or Tea Party or Green Party, though it may be played as such. For us, the ultimate end goal is a world powered by renewable energy.

And to reach this vision, SEI’s mission is to provide industry-leading technical training in renewable energy to empower people, communities and businesses worldwide. To reach our vision, we have to have systems that are properly sold, designed, installed, and maintained to avoid repeating the lessons of previous decades. In this rapidly evolving industry, it’s our mission to provide people with the training that they need, no matter what size or type of system they specialize in. This training, as our alumni know first-hand, is empowering. Whether you become a more knowledgeable homeowner or start a new career, develop or grow a business, or work with a community in the developing world- SEI’s training is designed to serve you.

As this year quickly comes to a close, on behalf of all of us at Solar Energy International, we wish you a Happy 2019. May your year be sunny, your systems trouble-free, and your work fulfilling. Thank you for being an alumni and friend of SEI.

 

Sincerely,

Kathryn Swartz

Executive Director

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Colorado: The epicenter of a pivotal renewable energy shift

Colorado has been the epicenter of a pivotal shift in the energy industry this past week. From a groundbreaking announcement of the state’s largest utility moving to zero carbon emissions by 2050 followed by a municipal utility making a similar pledge, to a rural electric cooperative in the West asking state regulators to weigh in on a fair exit fee from their coal-heavy electricity supplier, the powerful moves made this week toward a future powered by renewable energy have the potential to reverberate impact across the country.

Last week, Delta Montrose Electric Association (DMEA) filed with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) “to exercise its statutory authority over Tri-State Generation & Transmission as a public utility and adjudicate a just, reasonable and nondiscriminatory exit charge.” Tri-State, which primarily supplies electricity from fossil fuels, limits all of its members to 5% renewable energy, while at the same time their electricity costs have increased by 56% since 2005.

If the PUC rules in DMEA’s favor, it could potentially cause an exodus of other electric co-ops to follow in DMEA’s footsteps, or force Tri-State to significantly raise the cap on renewables. Either way, this is a win for renewables.

We can look across the country to Georgia for an example of why this decision could be so impactful. Just last week, a partnership opportunity model emerged between consumer-owned coops and corporate renewable energy procurers when Georgia’s Walton Electric Membership Corporation revealed contract details for three solar projects that will supply a Facebook data center in the state. The projects will add up to 202.5 megawatts in total capacity.

In this case, Facebook chose a coop over a larger investor-owned utility (IOU).  A Facebook spokesman told Greentech Media the move was in part due to a commitment “to the communities that host us, and part of that is working to bring additional investment to these communities, including new renewable energy resources.”

The news in Colorado and Georgia jointly reveals that renewable energy is emerging as primarily an issue of economic development as opposed to simply combating climate change. As an industry-leading training organization, SEI recognizes the potential of job opportunities created by projects such as these, and we are so excited for the increased support and access to renewable energy.

There’s a movement happening and it’s swelling from the ground level. DMEA is making this move because we, their members, voted in favor of them moving forward with a new vision, and their Board, which is composed of everyday citizens from Delta and Montrose Counties, is bold enough to see this fight through until the end.

We are excited for this win-win scenario for renewable energy, and are looking forward to powering forward into the future as a leading training provider in solar energy, empowering the growing workforce as the industry continues to thrive.

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