Solar

Perth’s Scotch College installs 512kW solar, cuts grid power usage by 25%

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A 120-year old private school in Western Australia is expecting to save around $235,000 a year on its energy costs after installing an impressive 512kW of rooftop solar.

Scotch College, a 1,500-student, 50-building facility located in Perth’s western suburbs, has installed 1,280 PV panels across multiple rooftops of the senior, junior/middle and maintenance school areas.

The system, installed by energy services business Verdia, will displace about 26 per cent of the school’s grid electricity use, including from a 50 metre pool, multipurpose library, and a large dormitory big enough to house 170 boarding students.

“It’s cheaper and cleaner than grid power and is a working example to students of a 21st century distributed power system,” said Verdia CEO Paul Peters.

For the school, the cost of the system is expected to pay for itself in just under five years and save the school $4 million in reduced energy costs over the life of the assets.

Read the full story on RenewEconomy sister site, One Step Off The Grid…

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Sophie Vorrath

Sophie is editor of Renew Economy and editor of its sister site, One Step Off The Grid . She is the co-host of the Solar Insiders Podcast. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.

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