The Herricks School District expects to save money in energy bills with the recent installation of solar panels on the roofs of the district’s three elementary schools.
And state Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel (D- Great Neck) who secured a state grant to pay for the panels, hopes the Herricks installation may spark a trend.
The solar panels were installed at the Center Street, Searingtown and Denton Avenue schools before classes began this month as the result of a $125,000 capital improvement grant secured by Schimel for the school district in 2010. The grant then underwent a lengthy approval process with the state Department of Education and the state Dormitory Authority.
At last Thursday’s Herricks School Board meeting, Schimel said she hopes the Herricks solar panel project established a template for other school districts.
“I hope Herricks becomes a model statewide. You are a leader in the state,” Schimel told the school board members as she thanked them for accepting the grant.
“Other schools are doing it, but not many,” she added.
Herricks Superintendent of Schools John Bierwirth said he has told officials at the state education department they should make a “massive” bid on behalf of “hundreds of school districts” for solar panels to apply marketing leverage to companies that supply and install the panels.
“If the state really wants to approve it, they’d need a generic bid with a single design,” Bierwirth said.
Absent that kind of initiative from the state education department, other school districts would have to go through the same protracted grant application process that Herricks had to follow, he said.
The net savings from the 20 panels atop each of the elementary schools is modest, but immediate, according to Jim Brown, Herricks district director of facilities.
“From day one, we’re making money. It’s not a lot, but it’s something,” Brown said.
“If we had enough panels on the roofs, we could turn the [energy] meters backward,” Brown said.
Brown said he is working on applying to the Long Island Power Authority for credit based on the installation of the solar panels. He said the actual savings that will be realized is being charted on a “solar monitoring” section of the school district’s Web site for all three schools.
Schimel said documented savings would strengthen the case for the state education department to establish a statewide initiative.
“If you do show the savings, the question becomes: Why don’t you do it?,” Schimel said.
