500 Schools Get Solar Panels, the Large Ones to Save About $8,000 a Year

Five hundred schools have been selected for solar panels under a $30 million programme, made up of $20 million from EECA’s Community Renewable Energy Fund and $10 million from the Ministry of Education. Three hundred and forty are in the North Island, 157 in the South Island, and three in the Chathams. Energy Minister Simeon Brown says the programme turns sunshine into savings. Large schools are expected to save around $8,000 a year on average.

Thirty million dollars across 500 schools is $60,000 each. At $8,000 a year, a large school earns its share back in roughly seven and a half years, which is a respectable return on hardware that lasts longer than that. The release does not say what a small school saves. It reports the average for large schools only, leaving the other end of the distribution to the imagination and to the power bill.

Installation runs over three years. Up to 150 schools also receive energy management systems, and some receive batteries, described as useful for both savings and community resilience. On the numbers given, this is a defensible piece of spending that eventually pays for itself. The schools will now wait three years for the sunshine, which has been sitting on those roofs the entire time.