Influencing the education of multiple school districts was one of two main goals of contractor Newport Renewables (NPTRE) when the company took on six school solar projects in 2015, and the results have turned out to be rewarding.
Rhode Island’s Office of Energy Resources offered grants to ten schools across the state to go solar, and NPTRE (No. 440 on the 2016 Top Solar Contractors list) was awarded six of the contracts to design and build the arrays and implement an educational component for each one. The contractor was happy to see schools wanting to go solar.
“It’s exciting to see so much interest from the schools,” said NPTRE’s business development manager Lucille Kreger. “It’s a great boost for the state.”
NPTRE began the installations in July 2015 and completed them in December 2015, all ranging in size from 10 to 50 kW. But Newport Renewables didn’t just sign out when the jobs were done. Part of the grant required that the schools include some kind of solar curriculum as part of their projects. However, the requirements weren’t specific, and developing education programs for students ranging from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade would be challenging. So NPTRE turned to the schools for feedback.
“We sent surveys to teachers,” Kreger said. “We wanted to see how each school was interested in participating—stating we could be involved as little or a much as they liked—we didn’t want to introduce a lot of new subject matter that would be a burden for the teachers.”
Based on the feedback, NPTRE developed custom programs for each school. NPTRE’s team visits the schools to provide workshops and lesson plans, whether through a whole school assembly or on an individual class level. For example, NPTRE lectured a high school AP science class on how solar cells work and how solar interacts with the grid. The team followed with hands-on activities featuring a “Kill A Watt” meter that showed how devices such as laptops, cell phones and hairdryers use energy.
NPTRE also installed monitoring and weather stations at each project so that each school and the public could view and compare each array’s performance. “One school can see how their sunny day affects their system’s output, while a cloudy day in a different area is affecting another school’s array performance,” Kreger said. “We wanted to support student and faculty understanding of the technology installed on their roof—how they’re saving energy and saving money on operating costs.”
Providing this curriculum may seem like a significant commitment for NPTRE, but Kreger stressed that her company values solar education.
“We believe one of the main drivers in the solar industry is education, because there is a lot of differing information out there,” Kreger said. “It’s important to educate the children and teachers and be involved in the community. We really like to get out there. It’s important for them to know the benefits of renewable energy and that their school is participating in utilizing clean energy.”
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