Three high school getting into solar power game

Dairyland Power setting up interactive arrays

Three school districts are getting into the solar game thanks to Dairyland Power Cooperative’s Solar for Schools program.

The coop is setting up Alma, Cochrane-Fountain City, and De Soto school districts with fixed panel, pole mounted solar systems as part of an initiative to get solar power into the school districts.

But it’s more than just solar power, it’s something the students can use as a learning tool, though what Katie Thompson with the coop calls a Data Acquisition System, in which real-time monitoring of the arrays can take place.

“So each school will have access,” Thompson said. “It will tell things like the total hourly output of the array, environmental benefits and some other metrics.” 

The installations will happen on site and should be ready by the fall school year.

“The systems will be 12 kilowatts, a little more energy capacity than the average home uses in a month’s time,” Thompson added.