Schools are great places for solar.

Not only do they provide many schools a nice, alternative way to generate power. Most schools have that ideallic streak in them – what better time to teach folks to be idealistic than when they are, well, not yet folks.

Indian schools are just warming to solar. Even the schools that have “gone solar” are taking baby steps, with perhaps a 5 or 10 kW installations. Not so with many of the schools in US or Europe, some of which have some real impressive installations.

Here’s a tour how the schools around the world are doing on generating solar power from their premises.

Matthew Arnold School, UK (source)

Snapshot of Portola Valley School, San Jose, CA, USA (Source)

A 265 kW solar energy installation on the Portola Valley School District’s two campuses just west of San Jose. The installation, spread over dozens of roofs, will offset roughly 80% of the District’s electricity bill. The challenges associated with shading from surrounding redwood trees, combined with myriad roof surfaces and orientations, created a need for microinverters to maximize kWh harvest. Instead of a small number of high-capacity, centralized power inverters, each of the array’s 1,127 solar panels is equipped with a microinverter that converts the panel’s DC electricity to AC at the panel.

Thornton Heath School, UK (Source)

West Sonoma School. CA, USA (Source)

Ground-mounted solar for car ports. 834 kW of solar power generation across three high schools using ultra-high production SunPower PV modules.

Choate Rosemary Hall, Connecticut, USA (Source)

A 296 kW solar PV system will meet 100% of the Center’s energy needs and provide its students with real world environmental design and engineering lessons a textbook can’t fully replicate. The 1,056-panel solar array adjacent to the Kohler Environmental Center has helped the building achieve LEED Platinum status and net-zero energy use.

Whitings Hill School, UK (Source)

Rio Rancho High School, New Mexico, USA (Source)

More than 4,000 solar panels sit behind and now power Rio Rancho High School.

Woodbine Elementary School, NJ, USA (Source)

Sandy Grove Middle School, North Carolina (Source)

Sandy Grove Middle School in North Carolina has four striking solar structures that will produce enough power to power three electric vehicle charging stations on the campus. The four tree-like collectors will contribute around 12 kW to the school’s 590 kilowatt photovoltaic solar system and will power three EV charging stations on the campus.

Greendot School, LA County, USA (Source)

Wow, such an amazing facade installation of solar panels.

650 solar panels were used to clad the south facade, providing 75% of the building’s energy needs. The kW of the solar PV installation is not provided in the report, but at say 250 W per panel, we are looking at about 160 kW.

While the construction/design sure looks awesome, not sure how awesome the yield will be from such an arrangement which might not capture the solar radiation in the best possible manner!

Solar Roof on Frisbee Playground, European School of Taipei (Source)

The PV Frisbee solar roof project was established at the campus of the European School of Taipei (TES) with a celebratory inauguration. Drafted by a well-known architect, it also serves as an aesthetically-appealing playground roof.  It consists of a total of 32 PV modules with a total output of around 7 kWp and displays a projection area of about 100 m².

Some interesting solar links

See also: Suncyclopedia, the Solar Encyclopedia