South Whidbey High School

As a Renewable School, South Whidbey High School in Langley, Washington is building a dedicated community of renewable energy educators, generating clean energy through their 1.6-kilowatt photovoltaic (PV) system, and leveraging the system as an educational tool to bring energy topics to life in their classrooms.

The project reflects the community’s commitment to educate students and community members about sustainable power and transportation. The PV system and accompanying electric vehicle recharging station were installed on the roof of the sports stadium by the community, during a workshop organized by students Dylan Fate, and Trevor Martin (Class of 2008). The PV system features a single 1.6-kilowatt array of eight Sanyo 200-watt PV modules. The system can light more than 100 compact fluorescent light bulbs. Over a year, it can produce more than 1,500 kilowatt-hours of clean, renewable energy.

In 2008, educators within the school received a customized renewable energy teacher training, hands-on science kit materials to augment the school's existing curricula, and complete access to the resources available on the Solar4RSchools.org website. At the time of the project, energy monitoring services provided to the school connected the live performance data from their PV system to students and educators to analyze the system's performance data for educational purposes.