Lacombe Composite High School – Roofs 4 Kids Solar PV

OVERVIEW

As part of the Municipal Climate Change Action Centre’s Solar for Schools Program, Wolf Creek Public Schools installed a 4 kW solar PV system as part of the Roofs for Kids project at Lacombe Composite High School. The project also includes a rooftop garden that will host indigenous pollinators with medicinal and edible benefits.  The garden will provide food and habitat for local pollinators and bees kept at the school, while the edible items from the garden will provide food for the school’s food programs, volunteers and community. The solar PV system will generate 5,628 kWh of electricity per year, saving the school around $563 in energy costs per year. The project is expected to reduce emissions from the school by 3 tonnes of CO2e per year.

APPROACH

The project was initiated in the fall of 2020 and was completed in the spring of 2021.

RESULTS

With the project now complete, education around renewable energy has also been integrated into the school curriculum where students will describe the functioning of renewable energy technologies and assess their advantages and disadvantages, including active and passive solar-heating technologies, wind turbines, hydroelectric power, biomass energy, geothermal energy, hydrogen fuel cells;  students will describe the conversion of solar energy into renewable forms (e.g., wind, hydropower, chemical potential energy by photosynthesis) and non-renewable forms (e.g., coal, oil and gas) and further conversion into electrical and thermal energy.

“The benefits of this program are immense. First of all it has provided a hands-on opportunity for students to develop their leadership skills as they planned, designed and built the Roof for Kids project.”

Val Yaremchuk, Principal