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    West Virginia School District adding nearly 1 MW of Solar on-site

    Feb. 13, 2023
    Under the agreement, Secure Solar will deploy a solar array of 596.6 kW at Calhoun Middle/High School in Mt. Zion and a second array of 172 kW at Pleasant Hill Elementary School in Grantsville
    Image credit CCPS Facebook page
    Calhoun 63ea5f3827318
    Kelli Whytsell, superintendent of Calhoun County Schools
    Kelli Whytsell, superintendent of Calhoun County Schools
    Calhoun County Public Schools in West Virginia has signed an agreement with on-site clean energy firm Secure Solar Futures to install solar power systems with a total capacity of 768.6 kW at two school sites.

    Under the agreement, Secure Solar will deploy a solar array of 596.6 kW at Calhoun Middle/High School in Mt. Zion and a second array of 172 kW at Pleasant Hill Elementary School in Grantsville.

    With this, Calhoun County Schools claims that it will become the first public school system in the state to install solar panels. It will receive solar power through a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Secure Solar Futures at no upfront cost.

    “Calhoun County Schools is excited to be the first public school system in the state of West Virginia to install solar panels on their school roofs,” said Kelli Whytsell, superintendent of Calhoun County Schools. “We will be partnering with Secure Solar to be able to produce electricity that our schools will be using in the near future. We hope that being the first public school system to install the solar panels on our roofs will encourage other school systems to follow suit.”Under the PPA, all the solar equipment will be owned and operated by Secure Solar Futures. The Virginia-based company will sell solar energy to the schools at a cost lower than the grid power offered by the local electric utility.

    The solar arrays will be installed on roofs of school buildings and use a total of 1,671 Tier 1 460-Watt monocrystalline solar modules manufactured by Heliene in Minnesota. Installation is expected to be completed by the end of 2023.

    The systems are projected to produce enough clean energy to power the equivalent of 78 homes and avoid 400 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, equivalent to the amount sequestered by 473 acres of forest.

    This deal is expected to save the school district approximately $740,000 in energy costs over the next 25 years. Secure Solar was selected as the provider in a competitive public procurement process through a request for proposals issued by Calhoun County Schools in the fall of 2022.

    Secure Solar will also offer classroom curricula and job training programs for solar installers as part of the agreement.

    West Virginia legalized solar PPAs through House Bill 3310 in 2021, making it the 29th state to do so. 

    About the Author

    EnergyTech Staff

    Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

    Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    He can be reached at [email protected]. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.