The sun solution for school budgets
Pittsburgh schools should look to the sun for a solution. Rising costs are top of mind as western Pennsylvania schools prepare their budgets for the next school year.
Energy costs are the secondhighest operational expense schools face, after staffing. Schools can balance the budget without sacrificing instructional investments by trimming utility bills. It’s a simple solution already in place across the state to help balance budgets, raise teacher pay, and fund essential programs: solar energy.
Across the Commonwealth, K12 schools are turning to the sun to save millions of dollars on longterm energy costs. A report nonprofit Generation180 found that the amount of solar installed on Pennsylvania K-12 schools has more than doubled since 2020. Nearly 90,000 students currently attend one of 108 schools in the state with solar.
In Schuylkill County, the Tamaqua Area School District converted a legacy coal mine to a solar farm that now supplies all its electricity needs. Shortly after it flipped the switch on the solar array, PPL Electric Utilities raised electricity rates by 70%. After the rate hike, the district’s projected long-term energy savings rose from $8.5 million to $10 million.
The increase in solar production at schools is slashing energy bills and providing a windfall for school districts whose budgets shrunk during the pandemic. In central Pennsylvania, Midd-West School District is 95% powered by solar and is currently saving $145,000 per year, enough to pay several new teacher salaries.
Pittsburgh area school districts that go solar could save significantly on electricity costs, yet currently no public schools in the entire southwest region of the state that are taking advantage of this commonsense budget solution. At a time when global energy markets are volatile and Pennsylvania utilities have raised electricity prices, installing solar provides stability to a school district’s budget and frees up funds for other
critical needs.
In 2022, Pittsburgh Public Schools alone was expected to spend $7.8 million just on its energy bills. That is a lot of money that could be invested in raising student achievement and closing the educational gaps that widened during the pandemic.
Pittsburgh students are calling for this to change. In 2019, students in Woodland Hills School District (WHSD) successfully advocated to make their school district the first in the state to pass a resolution to address climate change. Earlier this year, the district released an ambitious climate action plan aiming for zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The school district recently greenlighted a feasibility study to examine their options for going solar and to help achieve their Climate Action Committee’s ambitious goals. Thanks to the vision of young people and supportive local leaders, WHSD is on the path to become the first school district in metro-Pittsburgh to go solar.
Solar is a cost-saving solution that schools across the Commonwealth
can access, regardless of the size of their budgets. Schools can go solar without having to pay upfront costs, eliminating the need to find the funds in their already restricted budgets.
Through third-party financing arrangements, schools can expect to see immediate energy savings by purchasing the solar energy at a rate lower than what they would pay the utility. Funding opportunities created by the new Inflation Reduction Act will make clean energy for schools even more affordable and accessible moving forward.
Cost savings aren’t the only benefits that solar energy can offer schools. Pennsylvania schools can use onsite solar projects to provide real-world, hands-on education and job training. A 2021 survey found 84 percent of clean energy employers in Pennsylvania had a hard time finding trained workers.
The School District of Philadelphia has answered this need with a new district-wide program to train high school students for careers in the fast-growing solar industry. The first graduates of a new three-year solar job training program will enter the workforce this summer.
Nationwide, solar PV installer is expected to be one of the fastestgrowing occupations over the next decade. Pennsylvania has seen 72% growth in solar industry employment since 2015. Our schools have an opportunity to be preparing young people for the careers in clean energy that will be available when they graduate.
Now is the time for Pittsburgh schools to go solar, a switch that could help balance school budgets and shift millions of dollars from high energy bills back into student learning and achievement. We can learn from the successes of other Pennsylvania schools that have welcomed solar and apply those lessons to communities across the Pittsburgh area at a critical moment for our students, and pocketbooks.