Students Bring Solar Power to School in Minnesota
By: Donny Rowles, 23 May 2008
Source: KAAL TV, Minnesota
http://kaaltv.com/article/stories/S454805.shtml?cat=10226
They’re only in high school, but they’re already looking out for future generations. Students at Mayo High School are leading the way in a lesson on renewable energy. By next fall, the sun will provide power to their school building.
“This project is really going to go somewhere and that we are serious about this,” says Mayo High School Junior, Patrick Allen. He’s also a project manager of the Olmsted County Solar Initiative, a group and project designed to raise money to put solar panels on Mayo High School.
Allen and a few other students set it up.
“By educating these future generations, we can really show the need for green energy and how it’s easy to implement it in your home,” he says. Allen and his friends have already raised tens of thousands of dollars and have the attention of local energy experts. “I’m very surprised at how far they’re taking this project and I’d like to see some solar panels on Mayo High School,” says Chuck Pentek with Rochester Public Utilities.
The panels will generate enough energy to provide almost 1% of the school’s energy. But the amount of energy is not the point. “If one of these solar panels was put on a house, it could power the house. There’s community members in town that power their house with 8 kilowatt systems and if someone does that, that’s what we want to see. This is for education of the community to see how it works,” says Allen.
So in the drive toward renewable energy in Rochester, the youth are leading the way. The goal is to make the student group pushing for solar panels renewable too. Next year, Allen will train a junior to take over the project and new students will work to put solar panels on other local schools.