Colorado’s largest school district, Jefferson County (Jeffco) Public Schools, is installing 100-kilowatts arrays at 30 of its 158 schools. Already six of the arrays are complete and generating power for their respective schools.

Photovoltaic arrays are now producing electricity for Arvada West High School, Bear Creek High School, Columbine High School, Lakewood High School, Mt. Carbon Elementary School, and the service center of the Education Center.

The schools have displays showing how much the panels are producing, said Melissa Reeves, Jeffco’s news media specialist.

“They’ll have an educational element, essentially a meter that displays all the stats,” she said. Stats include things like generation, capacity and energy use. “Teachers are using that in the curriculum.”

Thanks to incentives offered by Colorado, the federal government and Xcel Energy, the school system’s electricity provider, the arrays are being installed at no out-of-pocket cost to Jeffco schools, Reeves said. Jeffco schools will pay for the power generated by the arrays through a 20 year power-purchase agreement (PPA) with CEI Roofing Colorado, a Tecta America subsidiary.

The PPA offers the school a long-term fixed cost for the power generated.

“This was a way to keep those [power] costs at a low financed level. They lock us into a rate, and it doesn’t rise over the next 20 years. It will save us money,” she said.

Under the agreement, the school district is paying for the energy produced by the arrays at a rate lower than its current Xcel rate, according to RSB Funds, which financed the arrays.

In addition, CEI will maintain the solar panels over the life of the contract. A study, done when the school district began considering solar, showed that the arrays could save the school about $1 million in electric costs over 20 years.

“It makes sense. You’re paying for the electricity regardless,” she said. “It just makes sense to take up the federal and state incentives and do this.”

The solar arrays were financed by RSB Funds. Martifer Solar USA is the general contractor. The arrays were designed by Golden Power Partners, Inc., and roofing company Tecta is putting the systems together on the individual facilities.

Completion of all 30 installations is slated for late February, said Reeves.

But the school district has to have the arrays completed by March 15 to meet an Xcel Energy incentive deadline, she said.

Image courtesy of RSB Funds.