Reasons to apply for an NCGP Solar Schools grant
January 25, 2018
NC GreenPower is excited to announce we are accepting applications for the fourth year of our Solar Schools Program starting January 2, 2018 through February 28! The NC GreenPower Solar Schools Pilot provides grants for a 3-5 kW solar photovoltaic (PV) educational project, complete with a weather station, real-time monitoring, curriculum and training for teachers. Any K-12 school in North Carolina may apply for a 50% matching grant, up to $10,000. Schools are reviewed on a number of criteria – more information about the application process and eligibility requirements can be found in the Application Information document.
Students of Mt. Pleasant High School in front of their solar array
Are you interested in applying but need some help getting your principal on board with the Solar Schools Program? Here are some good reasons why your school should apply:
Your school will receive a complete 3-5 kW solar educational installation
- Enhance your students’ education experience
- Reduce your school’s electricity cost by up to $600 a year (for schools served by Duke Energy, Dominion Energy and some electric cooperatives and municipalities)
- Visible to the community and your students – show off your school’s STEM and energy focus to prospective students and interested members of the community
- Hands-on project for students to learn from for many years to come
The package includes a weather station and real time data monitoring system
- Incorporate live data from the array into your classroom (example here)
- Compare different scenarios (sunny vs. rainy days, summer vs. winter days) and involve students in reading and interpreting the data
- Data of solar installation production is shared online and all schools have access to the data. Compare your school’s weather and energy output to data from our other schools across North Carolina
Teacher Training with NEED
Grade-level appropriate curriculum and teacher training is provided
- Your school will receive custom curriculum packages specific to your grade levels, solar kits with hands-on solar energy activities for the classroom and energy-themed curriculum booklets.
- A one-day training with six hours of CEU credits is provided for up to five teachers from your school with a certified National Energy Education Development Project (NEED) trainer.
- Training and curriculum are provided in partnership with NEED. Materials support Next Generation Science Standards, Common Core State Standards for English/Language Arts and Mathematics, and individual state science standards, where applicable. Access the correlations files for the relevant standards by visiting NEED’s correlations page: NEED.org/curriculumcorrelations.
NEED Curriculum Kit
Grant funding is provided!
- NC GreenPower provides 50% of the total installation cost, up to $10,000
- State Employees Credit Union (SECU) Foundation will select up to five public school recipients for a $15,000 challenge grant for which your school may be eligible. (There is not separate application for this grant.)
- Schools have from April – September to fundraise their portion (estimated $5k-$10k)
- NC GreenPower assists with marketing, social media promotion and other forms of communication for your fundraising efforts.
- All 14 schools from previous years have been successful in raising their funds!
- The total amount that you will raise covers the cost of the complete installation, five years of operations and maintenance (O&M) funds for the array, appropriate permits, a weather station, online data monitoring system, curriculum, energy kits for your students and the teacher training session.
Submitted questions and answers regarding our Solar Schools program can be found here in our FAQ section. Questions should be emailed to solarschools@ncgreenpower.org.
To download this document as a PDF please click here.