The newest addition in the effort to reduce energy costs in the Oak Harbor School District will be installed this summer – a 37 kilowatt solar panel with an IP address any student can log on to.
Brian Hunt, the director of facilities for Oak Harbor Public Schools, came up with the idea of installing a solar panel for the school district.
“In the past eight years since I’ve been here, we have had multiple projects with an energy efficiency angle,” Hunt said. “We’ve replaced boiler systems with newer boilers. We’ve done a lot of LED lights and so this just kind of fit with our whole theme of energy reduction–cost reduction.”
The solar panel project has been in the works since around this time last year, but Hunt had the idea for a while before that. The school applied for and was awarded a grant from the Department of Commerce, which will pay for about a third of the price of the panel.
The panel will be installed on the roof of North Whidbey Middle School in Oak Harbor.
“It’s going to be pretty prominent,” Hunt said.
It will take up most of the roof which was chosen because it is south-facing and mostly free of trees; therefore, it will receive a lot of sunlight. The building is also not due for any upgrades or repairs in the near future.
“Once the panels are put in there, they need to stay there for 30 years,” he said.
The solar panel will serve two purposes. It will reduce energy costs and it will also serve as a learning tool for any Oak Harbor student.
“Any classroom in this district can dial into that IP address and look at the solar panel,” Hunt said.
There will be a virtual dashboard that will be able to tell students how much money is being saved and how much energy the panel is producing. Hunt is particularly excited for students involved in the ecology club at Oak Harbor High School to see the solar panel.
Even though the building uses much more energy than the panel will provide, it will still help with the electricity usage and save the district money.
“Oak Harbor Public Schools is pretty aggressive when it comes to energy savings and just saving utility dollars,” he said. “Every dollar we save in utility is dollars that can go straight to our students in our classroom.”
Other energy-saving measures Hunt has put in place include LED lighting projects in four of Oak Harbor’s schools. He has replaced all outside lights with LEDs and this summer will start on inside lights in libraries and lunch rooms. LED lights use about one third of the power of regular fluorescent lights.
“This is our most visual step,” Hunt said about the solar panel.
No one sees the new boilers that North Whidbey Middle School had installed three years ago that use one-fourth of the gas. It will also be the most interactive.
The panel will be installed on the roof of North Whidbey Middle School this summer after students are released for summer vacation.
