West Valley Junior High

In the fall of 2014 a 9.72kW solar installation was completed at Yakima's West Valley Junior High. This project was made possible by financial support from Pacific Power's Blue Sky Program and project design and oversight by Bonneville Environmental Foundation's Renewable Energy Group. Seattle solar experts at Northwest Wind and Solar completed the physical installation, interconnection, and permitting. The solar array will help offset the school's energy usage and the live energy and weather data can be used in the classroom.

BEF's Solar 4R Schools program will provide teacher training and classroom materials in August 2015 to help the school teach about renewable energy science and industry. To optimize integration of renewable energy science and technology content, every aspect of the support provided by Solar 4R Schools was customized to fit the unique focus of the school community, including topics covered in the teacher training as well as our recommendations for activities and science kit materials to make integration of this new content as efficient as possible. At the time of the project, energy monitoring provided by the Solar 4R Schools program made the live performance data from their PV system available for educational purposes.