Project Details:Top

Utility Name:	Madison Gas and Electric
Utility Type:	IOU
Funding Source(s):	Corporate Discretionary Budget
State:	Wisconsin | WI
Region:	Central
Utility Program(s):	Distributed Solar Systems,Educational Partnerships (gov't, non-profit, school, etc),Research, Demonstration, Resource Assessment, etc
Technology:	PV

Project Description:Top

Solar in Schools is an educational partnership between Madison Gas and Electric (MGE) and the Madison, Wisconsin area school districts. The MGE Foundation funds the installment of PV systems in area High Schools.

The PV systems all have rated capacities just below 2 kW. Along with the installment, the high schools receive educational curriculum on renewable energy and real time performance monitoring systems that give students access to data from their PV system through an web-based interface.

From August 2001 to March 2002, 10 PV systems were installed. The program was started in MGE`s Energy Products and Services group (EPS) and took about one year to develop by in-house personnel. Receiving interconnection approval and developing the customer agreements were initial impediments to a setting up the program. The PV system design was completed by the EPS electrical engineer and a local PV system electrician/installer. MGE assumes all responsibility for costs and maintenance.

The MGE Foundation made a one-time donation of approximately $310,000 to purchase and install the PV systems. Two groups oversee ongoing operation of the program: EPS (electrical engineer for maintenance issues) and MGE`s Community Education Coordinator. There is a small budget line-item for on-going PV system maintenance, and an educational budget in the Consumer Affairs group. There have not been any significant maintenance charges to date.

The Solar in Schools program has no end date and there are currently no plans to discontinue the program. If there were to be sudden mechanical problems in multiple systems, which required incurring significant capital costs, the utility would rethink continued support of the program.

MGE developed this program with the internal goal to test and research renewable energy applications from a utility perspective and educate its staff on how to apply them, troubleshooting, and what kinds of operational and maintenance issues may come up. The results of this utility study are available on their website and a link is posted in this case study.

Project Links:Top

General Project Description: http://www.mge.com/environment/green/solar/schools.htm

MGE Research Results: http://www.mge.com/environment/solar/learned.htm

Participant Tools:

• Partnership Description - http://www.mge.com/images/PDF/Brochures/Community/SolarPartnership.pdf
  
• Solar Curriculum - http://www.mge.com/environment/solar/curriculum.htm
• Comparing Solar in Schools system performances with other school PV systems worldwide - http://view2.fatspaniel.net/SSH/search.jsp

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