 CART student Toua Lor, 17, holds a "solar car" connected to a solar panel array. The car's rear wheels spin when the solar panel array is placed in sunlight. The school recently received two 3-kilowatt solar electric generators that are being used not only to study the benefits of solar energy, but also to reduce the school's electric bill. |
Thanks to a donation of two three-kilowatt solar generators from PG&E, students of the Clovis charter school are learning about alternative energy and are putting its money-saving benefits to use.
The two panels, standing behind the school's environmental lab, can produce enough energy to power two portable classrooms.
Steve Wilson, a teacher in the environmental lab, said the panels could easily handle the power needs of a typical home and about one-tenth of the school's needs.
"It's an incredible lesson for the students, and it is in fact supplementing our energy bill," Wilson said. "The more energy we can accumulate through alternative means that are environmentally friendly, the better off we are."
CART allows juniors and seniors from Clovis and Fresno unified school districts -- which founded the school together -- to work in a lab setting using a curriculum that has real-world applications.
Students in the different CART labs ranging from multimedia and bioengineering to law and policy interact with professionals and tackle in-depth projects like the solar panels.
Steve Ward, chief operations officer at CART, said over the past few years the students and staff have sought ways to cut down the amount of energy used by the school. The school has spent as much as $180,000 in one year on its energy bill.
Ward said in its first year CART used about 1,250,000 kilowatts of energy, but by year four it had reduced that amount to 843,000 kilowatts and a savings of $40,000.
The panel program will take that number down even more.
The solar panels will save the school about $2,000 a year, producing around 1 to 2 percent of the school's energy needs.
"Since CART pays its own energy bills, every dollar we save is a dollar we can put back into the program," Ward said. "The $2,000 we save on solar can be used to purchase 40 more textbooks, or pay for buses for two more field trips, or purchase two more computers every year."
The panels are part of PG&E's Solar Schools program that gives away $1.5 million in grants, curriculum and materials to under-served schools in Northern and Central California.
CART is one of 20 schools to receive the solar panels and curriculum for solar education from PG&E.
Seeing rising costs in public education and even the elimination in many districts of special programs, PG&E's Solar School program can possibly help with both school finances and enrichment programs.
"It combines the community's needs and desires for a good education for the children and our expertise as a company," said Dan Quigley, head of charitable donations for PG&E. "And it really makes sense with everything that CART is aiming for in trying to bring schools and the community and business world together."
With the panels, students can track the amount of energy coming off the panels, how much heat reaches it, when the most sun reaches the panel, how much energy is stored and what that energy can do.
The curriculum allows the students to explore other solar energy projects from solar powered pianos to a "green" or environmentally friendly design for a church.
"They have just loved learning about this. They get so excited. It's important for them to understand how this works because they could be the ones to make alternative energy happen."
Some students have already begun doing just that.
Sirena Williams, 17, went home and did an energy audit of her home to figure out exactly how much power it takes to run her family's house and what kind of alternative sources could be used.
To her surprise, the water cooling system was one of the most expensive in terms of power.
She then decided to create something that would run on clean, cheap solar energy. Teachers gave her a list of ideas and she liked the idea of a solar-powered fountain best.
"This has been the most exciting project I've ever done building this fountain and using solar energy," said Sirena, an Edison High student.
After two weeks of spending two or more hours a day on it, Sirena designed and built the fountain that sits in the shadow of the two solar generators.
"I think solar energy is really cool. I never really thought much about it before, but I learned that the sun can produce enough energy for a year in 15 minutes," Sirena said.
"It's important for us to use environmentally friendly resources. More high school students need to learn about this; maybe they won't take the energy for granted."
