Solar Panels Light Up Additions At Nelson, Mark Twain Schools

With Earth Day coming up in April, students at Nelson Elementary School and Mark Twain Elementary School in Niles won’t have to go any further than the front of their buildings to get real-time education about how renewable energy really works.  

East Maine School District 63 completed additions to four of its seven schools last summer and installed a large solar panel on the grounds of each school as part of the total project, according to Scott Clay, Ed.D, superintendent of the seven-school district. The two other schools that received solar panels were Melzer School in Morton Grove, and Washington Elementary School in Glenview.

The suggestion for the panels started with architects at Wight & Company, the Chicago firm that designed the additions, but was quickly embraced by the school board as a great idea, said Clay. East Maine has no other clean energy systems connected to its buildings.

 “This is the beginning for our school district to move in a green direction,” said Clay. “It’s an important value we want to instill in all our students and it goes along well with the idea of conserving energy.” 

 The main reasons for adding solar panels was the potential for energy and cost savings, and the ability to use them as an educational tool for students at the schools, explained Clay.

Each school received a one kilowatt photovoltaic panel, which is expected to supply enough electricity for all the lighting in each new addition, said Dan Barrie, Director of Operations and Maintenance at the school district. Tapping that renewable energy source will offset some of the electricity the school would otherwise have to purchase from the local utility, he explained.

 “It’s meant as a supplemental supply, but we expect it to produce some good energy for us,” said Barrie.

 He anticipates energy from the solar panels will achieve a total annual cost savings of $5,573, and the school district expects a 10-year payback for its original investment. East Maine sold $4.7 million in municipal bonds to pay for the total construction projects, but breakout figures for the solar panels weren’t available, said Barrie.

 The school district had applied for a solar energy system rebate from the state of Illinois last year when the project was being conceived, but the grant request was denied, noted Barrie.

 On the educational front, the solar panels provide a resource for learning in multiple ways. For example, students can go online and get access to the solar panels’ real-time energy output so they can study how much energy the system is generating at any given time, explained Clay. 

Nichole Gross, Mark Twain School’s principal, is excited about integrating the solar panels into the classroom curriculum.

“We’re looking forward to showing students in real time how you can conserve energy and use natural resources at the same time,” said Gross. “When students get to experience this first hand, it helps them when they’re trying to apply that information to bigger concepts.”

Going forward, there are no immediate plans to install solar panels at the four other schools he oversees, said Clay. However, any new construction project that comes up in the future will likely include consideration of including solar energy capability, he added.