Phoenixville schools go green with solar panels

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  • PHOENIXVILLE — With the opening of the district’s new middle school on the horizon, the Phoenixville Area School District has officially completed construction and implementation on its green initiative.

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    Costing about $3.5 million, with $500,000 coming from a grant from the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority, the green initiative was first proposed to the school board in 2009.

  • Atlantic Energy Concepts took the lead on the project. The school district expects to save money in the future on lowered energy bills due, in large part, to the project’s centerpiece, solar energy panels at the high school and district administration office.

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  • “The reason they proposed (putting in solar panels) was (they) produced renewable energy, reduced the amount of energy we’d need to buy from PECO, and they’re a great educational tool for students here in the district,” Stan Johnson, the district’s director of operations, said Thursday.

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    The solar energy project was the costliest of the initiative, coming in at around $1.2 million. The solar cells were installed on the roofs of the high school and district administration office with a 250,000 kilowatt electric generating station, Johnson said.

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  • “It went live Dec. 16, generating electricity,” Johnson said. “It is reducing our bill, somewhere between 15 and 20 percent.”

  • Johnson said that the solar panels can’t go to work every day, obviously, and the winter is also not the “optimal time” for the panel use.

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  • “The sun is at a low angle, it’s cloudy some days,” Johnson said.

  • As such, Johnson believes a more consistent and greater amount of energy will be produced in the spring and fall, generating a greater savings on the district’s electric bill.

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  • Liz Robinson, the president of the Keystone Energy Efficiency Alliance, believes a district’s energy bill is the easiest place to find money during cash-strapped times.

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  • “The schools are faced with tremendous budget cuts and we regard the energy wasted as a tremendous financial resource that schools can access,” Robinson said Thursday.

  • Robinson hails the Phoenixville district as a model that other districts can follow with how they proceed regarding energy.

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  • “In the past, schools didn’t have to pay too much attention to these problems because the bill was the bill,” Robinson said. “Now that the budget is peeled back to the bone, (the energy bill) is an easy place to find savings.”

  • According to estimates, within 20 years, the school district will have fully recouped the $3.5 million used for the project, Johnson said.

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  • Additionally, Johnson said he was open to the possible expansion of solar energy throughout the district, although there are no plans at the moment.

  • “Quite honestly, we’re going to analyze (solar energy) and, if it makes sense to us and it’s economical, I, personally, as director of operations, would plan to recommend it,” Johnson said.

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  • In addition to being economical, Johnson said Phoenixville’s engineering class and several science classes have studied solar energy and used the new additions as examples and motivation. Moreover, “green clubs” are being offered in the elementary schools throughout the school district.

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  • Although Johnson said the solar panels were the solar energy additions were the most visible part of the green initiative in the district, there were many other changes and additions that will help save money on future energy bills.

  • Hundreds of lights throughout the district were changed to use more efficient lightbulbs and better ballasts. According to Johnson, the district has already seen a 50 percent payback on those.

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  • Phoenixville Area High School also had a new boiler added to it, a smaller version called a “pony boiler.”

  • “We’ll use it to heat the buildings in the spring and fall,” Johnson said. “That way, we don’t need to fire up the big boilers used in the wintertime.”

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  • Additionally, economical improvements to the air conditioning and other such improvements were made as part of the initiative.

  • Johnson said the district has had no problems with the new additions and looks forward to seeing the full capacity of saving the new devices and measures will bring the district.

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  • Robinson will also be paying attention.

  • “We want to provide a roadmap to follow to savings,” she said. “We’re trying to open up this issue and shine a light on (energy reformation) being urgently needed.”

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  • The original article can be found here.

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