May 10, 2024 7:05 pm • Last Updated: May 10, 2024 7:35 pm
Groton ― School, city and vitality officers rejoiced Friday afternoon as Town Mayor Rachael Franco held a ceremonial swap within the electrical room for Groton Middle School’s new photo voltaic panel system.
Recently put in photo voltaic panels at Groton Middle School and Mystic River Magnet School, funded underneath a Connecticut Green Bank program, are anticipated to save lots of the district about $40,000 a yr in vitality prices and practically $800,000 over 20 years, stated Superintendent of Schools Susan Austin.
Officials celebrated the set up of each programs at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the center faculty and previewed the center faculty’s roof-top photo voltaic panel system.
Austin stated the varsity district all the time needs to make new colleges constructed as a part of the Groton 2020 plan vitality environment friendly — and is entertaining potential photo voltaic initiatives at different colleges within the district.
“If we are able to do that for all of our colleges, that may actually take us into the longer term, and it’ll preserve our surroundings clear,” Austin stated.
Project Manager Richard Norris with Groton Public Schools stated photo voltaic photovoltaic (PV) programs can produce about 30 to 40% of the vitality for every of the varsity buildings.
Groton Middle School’s 560 rooftop panels have a capability of 230 kW, and Mystic River Magnet School’s 256 rooftop panels have a capability of 100 kW, based on a information launch from the Connecticut Green Bank, a quasi-public state. company that gives financing for clear vitality and environmental infrastructure initiatives.
The Connecticut Green Bank contracted with Verogy, the photo voltaic installer, to construct the programs, stated Emily Basham, affiliate director of the Connecticut Green Bank. CSW Energy offers technical help for the initiatives.
Connecticut Green Bank has signed a 20-year energy buy settlement with Groton Public Schools wherein photo voltaic panels are put in without charge to high school districts, and the faculties will buy photo voltaic vitality for a reduction charge, Basham stated. Connecticut Green Bank, which owns the photo voltaic panels, is chargeable for working and sustaining the programs.
In addition to those two initiatives, the Board of Education can be exploring Connecticut Green Bank putting in carport photo voltaic initiatives at Robert E. Fitch High School and the Mystic River Magnet School, Norris stated.
The Board of Education can be contemplating photo voltaic vitality as a part of the deliberate roof undertaking at Charles Barnum Elementary School, stated Austin.
Connecticut Green Bank’s program is offered to prospects at Eversource and United Illuminating places, Basham stated.
Norris and Sam Kilpatrick, director of buildings and grounds for the varsity district, stated Charles Barnum and Thames River Magnet School, one other new faculty being constructed underneath the Groton 2020 plan the place the varsity district hopes to -install a photo voltaic undertaking sooner or later, out there in areas known as Groton Utilities. If the Board of Education have been to pursue initiatives there, it must fund them, however the state at present offers about 60% of the price of photo voltaic initiatives. The state didn’t present that compensation on the time the faculties have been constructed.
Kilpatrick stated the varsity district expects financial savings from the photo voltaic panels at Groton Middle School and Mystic River Magnet School and the environmental advantages, in addition to for college students to be concerned within the initiatives as an academic instrument. sooner or later.
Officials additionally celebrated Friday the turning on of recent 70-foot-tall LED lights on the center faculty’s turf discipline, a separate undertaking accredited by the Town Council from leftover funds from the center faculty development undertaking.
