PV Gap

Tracy Said:

How much would a solar panel to power a pretty big school be?

We Answered:

You're probably looking in the neighborhood of a million dollars. The first thing you'll do is audit the energy usage of the whole school. Let's say you have a cheap PC that takes 300 watts. 300 watts of solar panel is several thousand dollars. For that, you could buy about 6 computers! Including one that's only 20 watts. Now you only need a few hundred dollars worth of solar panel :)

So you go through the whole school like that. Make it efficient. Now you're buying a MUCH smaller solar panel than you would have otherwise.

How well is the building insulated? Does it need new doors or windows? Get em and save a fortune heating the place. How about earth sheltering the roof? Thermal masses? Go through it all.

Does it use electric heat? Nope not with solar panels! Put in a solar-thermal system that is 50 times cheaper. Air conditioning? Retrofit to ground loop heat pumps and save a lot more energy.

Then when you've squeezed every watt out of the school's energy use, you put up a (much smaller) solar panel for a great deal less money.