The biggest reason for the surge is the.
Use of solar panels in schools.
The amount of electricity these schools produce annually at 1 4 million megawatt hours is enough to power over 190 000 homes.
Special structures can be built for this purpose as well.
Sunpower is a valued solar partner for school districts helping more than 340 districts across 20 states save on their electricity bills.
There are now 5 489 k 12 solar schools in the united states that use solar energy with a combined capacity of 910 megawatts nearly double the total solar capacity installed at schools in 2014.
Over the last 5 years the number of schools with solar increased by 81 and now 5 3 million students attend a school with solar.
Beyond offering industry leading solar power we re helping schools thrive in an era of tight budgets and bringing solar innovation and knowledge into the classroom.
Schools can place solar panels on top of shade structures in their parking lots allowing the school to gather lots of solar energy while also shading cars from the heat of the sun.
According to the report roughly 5 5 of all elementary and secondary schools in the country use solar power.
The primary benefit of solar panels is definitely cost efficiency.
Energy costs are the second largest expense for most schools.
There is quite a lot of long term savings that can be achieved with the use of solar panels.
These can be placed on top of existing canopies that are strong enough to support the weight of the panels.
The amount of money an individual school can save with a switch to solar energy will vary depending on factors such as location current energy demands and the type of the solar power system installed.
The overall capacity of solar that has been installed on schools is up 139 since 2014.
The nearly 5 500 schools using solar power today have a total of 910 megawatts of solar capacity enough to power 190 000 homes according to the study.
The report finds that 7 332 schools nationwide use solar power making up 5 5 of all k 12 public and private schools in the united states.