agip wrote:
Cool story on how a school district in a Southern state used cheap solar power to fortify its budget and pay teachers more.
Renewable energy is is a bipartisan winner. Dems shouldn't be afraid of leading on it.
"The project that resulted has helped slash the district’s annual energy consumption by 1.6 million kilowatts and in three years generated enough savings to transform the district’s $250,000 budget deficit into a $1.8 million surplus.
Just as Hester envisioned at the outset, a major chunk of the money is going toward teachers’ salaries — fueling pay raises that average between $2,000 and $3,000 per educator.
“Now we’re in the top quartile in the state,” Hester said."
https://energynews.us/2020/10/16/southeast/this-arkansas-school-turned-solar-savings-into-better-teacher-pay/
Cool story indeed.
Schools are a perfect fit for solar. A school uses most of its power during the day when the sun is shining. So there is little need for storage. And most schools have some extra land or roof space available for the panels. You pay for it using a power purchase agreement instead of buying the system up front. So there is little upfront cost.
I'm guessing that the limiting factor is awareness combined with the availability of panels and installers. That's where the government can help out by offering incentives for more schools to do this. It doesn't even need to be a lot of money. Just enough to help schools get started on solar projects causes private investment in factories that build panels and companies that do the installations and power purchase agreements.