The Sun Provides Powerful Education Experience

Thanks to PGE’s renewable power customers, four metro area schools have unique opportunities to learn from new solar power panel arrays. Solar panels were installed in 2005 at Lincoln High School, Cleveland High School, da Vinci Arts Middle School, and H.B. Lee Middle School as part of The Bonneville Environmental Foundation’s Solar 4R Schools program.™

The program gives students a “hands-on” education about the features and benefits of solar power, an increasingly popular renewable resource in Oregon, at no cost to the schools. The panels also supply a small amount of free electric power. Each participating school receives a Web-based curriculum package providing real-time data on the panels’ electrical output under varying exposure to the sun.

"These students can look forward to a future increasingly powered by clean energy from renewable sources like the sun," said Thor Hinckley, PGE’s renewable power program manager. "The solar panels on the schools will give them the inside track on this exciting technology and how it can help the environment. We thank PGE’s renewable power customers for helping fund these projects."

The PGE funding is the result of customer participation in renewable power options, which support the development of new renewable power projects, including the installation of solar panels such as these. Funding was also provided by BEF and the Energy Trust of Oregon.

The schools were selected because of the strong commitment to renewable power education by their administrations and their faculty "champions." One such champion is Lincoln High School science teacher Maggie Raczek.

"Today they’re students. In a few years, they’ll be adults having to make choices on energy in their homes and in their country and the related environmental impact," Raczek said. "This introduces some very important resource issues, while teaching science and math."

Each school received a 1,050-watt array of panels. The panels were installed on the school rooftops, with the exception of da Vinci Arts. These panels were installed on a pole in the da Vinci Living Water Garden.

"This is a great location for the pollution-free panels," said science teacher Dan Evans, "because the garden already improves the environment by cleansing rain runoff and kitchen wastewater from the school." This is just one example of how customer support of renewable power is making a difference in our community.