Light has not yet been shed on the fate of the Highglen elementary school solar panels.
The bank of photovoltaic collectors was installed on the school's roof in fall of 2011 and when the school partially burned on Apr. 22 it put their future in doubt. They are still visible on the roof, so they were not consumed by the flames, but it is not known if the intense heat cooked their energy collection capabilities. School maintenance personnel have not been able to do an assessment due to the building's instability.
"Over the next couple of weeks we have adjusters coming in, and I'm not sure at what point they will examine them but somewhere between two weeks to a month," said School District 57 superintendent Brian Pepper. "We are trying to get through thousands of tasks across every one of our departments to make the startup of classes as positive as possible for the affected students and assess what needs to be done at the Highglen site. Things like the solar panels are on that list of things we need to progress to, but more in the second phase."
The ribbon was broken Monday on the first phase when the Highglen students restarted their learning activities in the quickly reconverted Gladstone elementary school site that had been closed to regular classroom use for years.
Tracy Summerville, chair of the Prince George Montessori Education Society, said the solar panels were a popular feature of the Highglen community.
"It has been a wonderful project, to save energy and integrate new technology, and also use it as a learning opportunity for the students," she said.
It was an award-winning concept. Highglen parent Dave Leman was the project co-ordinator and was so successful at fundraising and implementation that he was bestowed with a Boomer-Plus Award by Volunteer Prince George. It was presented to him only six days before the fire.
"The fire got pretty close, and you can see how it melted the posts and steel girders, so I don't know if the panels survived that aspect of the fire. And there is also the wiring, the inverter, the school's electrical room itself, we have a lot we don't know yet," Leman said, concerned for his passion project.
"It was working well - indeed, flawlessly," he added. "It was on-target for the power generation projections it was calculated for and although that was only a fraction of the school's overall energy needs, it was still a significant amount of power."
Since it started in October, 2011 it has generated more than four megawatt-hours of power - enough, Leman calculated, to power a standard laptop computer for 85,500 hours.
"It was the first and, as far as I know, the only photovoltaic system on a public building in Prince George," Leman said. "The power generation aspect is only one part of its value. It was also a great demonstration project for other schools and institutions and the students were learning from it as well. Even if the power generation underperformed, it still would have been a worthwhile project, but in fact a substantial amount of power was generated."
The cost to buy the panels and install them on the roof was about $24,000 plus the time invested by SD57 staff to set it up and maintain its functions.
"Its been a tremendous learning experience for the kids in the school and absolutely for SD57 staff as well," said Pepper. "The whole project had the support of our maintenance department, and it came through this office as well. Everyone was pleased with the project to date. We don't know, at this point, if they are part of any insurance discussions. We do hope somehow it can continue."
The panels were paid for via a grant to select schools in the province by SolarBC. Only Highglen and a school in Fort St. John were located in the north, among the 13 selected.
