MI Districts Join Renewable Energy Purchase Initiative

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 04/29/09

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Clean Green Energy (CGE) announced that eight more high school districts in Michigan's Upper Peninsula have signed long-term power purchase agreements for integrated renewable energy systems at their schools as part of the Project EverGREEN Schools program. That makes a total of 16 schools in the region participating in the goal to introduce renewable energy into schools. The latest additions are Iron Mountain Public Schools, Brimley Area Schools, DeTour Area Schools, Pickford Public Schools, Rudyard Area Schools, Mid-Peninsula School, Munising Public Schools, and North Central Area Schools.

CGE is a group of companies that collaborate to design and develop renewable energy projects that may involve wind, solar, storage, efficiency, demand-side management, and other technologies. CGE's typical practice is to own, install, maintain, and operate the system at the customer's facility and sell all electricity to the school's facility at or slightly below existing retail rates. Schools incur no capital costs.

"The Project EverGREEN Schools program provides a hands-on learning experience teaching energy literacy to our students and community," said Iron Mountain Public Schools Superintendent Dennis Chartier. "Our graduates will be better prepared to face the challenges of diminished resources and capable of finding solutions through renewable energy generation/distribution and efficiency options. CGE makes this all possible by reducing our costs and providing student scholarships."

Project EverGREEN Schools was a program created by CGE and transferred last fall to Partners GREEN (Group for a Renewable Energy Efficient Nation), a nonprofit organization that provides formation and resources on renewable energy, energy efficiency, environment, and climate literacy in the school sector.