Good Day Sunshine: Solar Panels Coming To 3 Danvers School Roofs

DANVERS, MA — Three Danvers school roofs are set to soon start working for town residents with the installation of solar panels that will generate electricity that is then sold directly back into the municipal electric plant's grid.

Danvers Assistant Electric Utility Director Clint Allen outlined a proposal to the School Committee Monday night that he said will include the third-party installation and maintenance of panels on the roofs of Danvers High School, Smith Elementary School and Highlands Elementary School starting as early as October.

He said the project is expected to last about six months from staging to installation and that it will have "very little impact on the day-to-day operations of the schools."

"The schools were chosen not only because of the age of the roofs but because of the location — the way we can get the electricity back to our electric grid," said Allen, adding that Smith School was built with the infrastructure to support the panels.

He told the School Committee that the panels are part of a long-term plan to develop more renewable energy sources within the town and that the third-party model was viewed as the most viable financially. He said under the agreement Solect Energy, which has managed similar projects on municipal buildings across the state, will install and maintain the panels as well as be responsible for any damage or repairs.

He added that the town will have the option to purchase the panels after seven years of the 20-year agreement.

"Essentially, we buy all of our electricity wholesale and we have to shuttle it back to Danvers and we sell it back to our customers," he said. "By installing int-town generation we avoid paying transmission and capacity costs — essentially fees for using other people's wires across the grid.

"The way we've set up this arrangement is that it's directly fed back into the Danvers grid and metered. So we're essentially buying that wholesale electricity at the point of delivery right on the schools and it goes into our system.

"It's 100 percent renewable, carbon-free energy that we're passing on as clean energy to our customers at a competitive rate that is not increasing anybody's bills. But it will have an overall positive effect, not only on the environment but from an education aspect for students."

Allen said the intent is to set up kiosks in the schools where students can learn about the real-time energy output of the panels as well as potential workshops or classes to allow students interested to learn more about how they work.

He said the school solar projects are the first of several planned longer-range in the town — including a solar field at the landfill once it is filled in and graded, and an incentive program for residents to consider installing individual panels on their homes.

"With where we are on the state (climate roadmap that directs toward carbon-neutrality by 2050) we need to start doing more," he said.

The School Committee provided its endorsement of the program, which Allen said technically comes under the discretion of the town manager's office since it involves the exterior of municipal buildings. He said Solect Energy had also sought the School Committee's blessing before moving forward on the project involving the school buildings.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)