School Goes To Sun For Help
November 18, 2008 by Noel
Filed under Green Living
It seems like the officials of the Soquel High School had seen that their school’s electric bills have been soaring high. That is why they have decided to go to the sun for help. And it sure is going to be a good move for them.
Last week, the school had already started the transfer to solar power. Solar panels have already been installed on the roof of the school. The officials of the school are saying that this move is going to help lessen their monthly expenses on electricity. Plus, they would also be working on helping teach people about the green revolution.
Cynthia Hawthorne is the president of the school board and on this, she says, “We’re supposed to save just about as much carbon as we are money — 1.1 million pounds.” And what they took with those solar panels is indeed a big step.
Way to go Soquel High!
Source: wpxi.com
While I applaud this school’s efforts to go solar, I hope they did their homework first and did an electricity audit of their school. It’s far cheaper to cut your electricity use before you install solar – because you need that many fewer solar panels to install. The public sector doesn’t have the same bottom line motivations as the average homeowner or the private sector and I can imagine at least some well-financed school boards just throwing money at solar projects without first cutting consumption.
A friend of mine is a high school teacher in Durham, Ontario, and got his students to do an energy audit of the entire school over several weeks. They identified dozens of opportunities to conserve, and I believe the school agreed to buy a portion of its electricity from a green electricity supplier, because of all the savings the students identified and went after. Same cost to the school board, and cleaner energy to supply the school.