The Blachly-Lane Electric Co-op dedicated its 5.6 kW solar electric system and Solar 4R School Program involvement on Thursday with help from the installer, Eric Nill of Advanced Energy Systems and Brian Buhl, a teacher at Mapleton School.
The system is grid tied and offsets a portion of the co-op’s electric usage. The data collected from the system is also displayed on an informational kiosk located at the headquarters building and can be viewed at their project page here on Solar 4R Schools.
Da Vinci Arts Middle School in Portland celebrated a roofing renaissance at its new LEED Platinum-anticipated, net zero energy, high performance classroom building on April 10.The school held an open house to showcase the latest innovation of its groundbreaking building: a roof constructed with integrated photovoltaic (PV) solar tiles.
Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) donated 150 32-watt SolarSave® tiles from Applied Solar, Inc. that are being integrated into the roof and wired to an inverter in the building. When combined with a smaller, pole-mounted PV array already located at the site, these two systems will generate up to 6.3 kW of energy — enough to provide the 1,490-square-foot building’s electricity needs — making it the first net zero energy, LEED Platinum-anticipated, freestanding public school classroom in the nation.
