Solar

New Hampshire School Doubles Down on Solar Power

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 05/12/15

New Hampshire's Proctor Academy is adding more solar arrays as the result of a push from the school's student environmental action group.

The private day and boarding school for students in grades 9-12 previously installed a solar array in 2012 capable of generating approximately 78,000 kilowatt hours each year. ReVision Energy, a company involved in that earlier project, is returning with IGS Solar, which will build, own and operate five new arrays. Total solar output at Proctor Academy will be approximately 250,000 kWh annually upon completion of the new project.

Planned for installation at the school's ice rink, skiing area and three educational buildings, the new arrays are part of a wider move toward sustainability at Proctor Academy, "where more than 80 percent of heating fuel is renewable and used for locations throughout the campus, including a biomass facility, a geothermal dormitory and four dormitories where students cut, split, stack and even heat their residences with wood from the onsite 2,500-acre woodlot," according to a news release.

"This project in partnership with ReVision Energy and IGS Solar is incredibly exciting for us as we continue to live out our school's environmental mission statement by having nearly a third of our electricity demands powered by solar," said John Ferris, chief operating officer of Proctor Academy, in a prepared statement. "It is also a testament to the hard work and ingenuity of our students who proposed the solar sites and calculated the rooftop capacity in their math classes."