Shining light on solar sustainability in schools

SPECIAL REPORT Shining light on solar sustainability in schools

By Heather Barker Vermeer

Industry Reporter In May this year, the New Zealand Government released its fi rst Emission Reductions Plan (ERP), sett ing out Aotearoa’s path for climate action over the next 15 years.

It outlines the direction to be taken and the targets and actions needed for the country to reach a cleaner, greener destination over the next two decades.

Markers have been made across every sector of the economy and, among the targets set is that 50 percent of total energy consumption will come from renewable sources by 2035. The education sector, with its infrastructure and teaching remit, is tasked with being a purveyor of positive climate change modelling for the future. For example, as part of its climate protection promise outlined in the ERP, there has been a government commitment to replace all remaining coal boilers in schools by 2025, in a bid to create cleaner energy production across the education sector.

In May, Climate Change Minister James Shaw announced a $10 million dollar investment to replace all 180 remaining coal boilers with renewable biomass or electric heating sources, reducing carbon emissions by around 35,400 tonnes over 10 years. The School Coal Boiler Replacement Programme began prioritising schools with the oldest, least effi cient boilers, allowing them to transition to clean energy thanks to an allocation from the government’s $220 million State Sector Decarbonisation Fund. “Clean energy in schools is a win for our kid’s health and the climate and shows that what’s good for the environment is also good for New Zealanders,” said Shaw in a statement.

Sett ing up with solar power is one of the key moves schools can make towards emission reduction and taking steps towards long-term, truly viable sustainability. It is, however, an outlay versus long-term investment balance scale that has long led to solar fi nding itself in the ‘too hard basket’ for schools and kura.

In 2015, Sylvia Park Primary School in Auckland became the fi rst school in New Zealand to install solar panelling. Last year, the country’s largest school solar power system was installed at Kerikeri High School. The 174-kilowatt system has already seen electricity bills at the school cut by half since it took the bold step towards sustainability and far-sighted cost saving. According to Consumer NZ research in 2021, the Northland township was paying the country’s highest power prices – on average, 40 percent more than similar households in Auckland where incomes average 25 percent higher. Therefore, installing solar power made sense. The college’s 174-kilowatt system dwarfs what was previously the largest school solar system at fellow Northland secondary, Kaitaia College which created a 101kW solar panel set in 2019. There are many individuals, organisations and agencies looking to contribute to the change, and competition for a seat at the solar table, in terms of supply an installation, education and partnership, is fi erce. There is public funding, private partnership, reputations and revenue at stake.

Is it due time for an independent body to exist to off er unbiased advice to empower and enable schools and their communities regarding the range of sustainable energy options on off er and how to navigate their way towards achieving emission-reducing change? Simon Parker thinks so. He is one of those leading the charge for change in the solar sector, calling for the creation of a Clean Energy Schools Trust, which he hopes to establish as the New Zealand arm of the international Solar for Schools community, already operating across six other countries.

Parker has a history of advocating for and enabling large-scale sector-wide innovation and change, his work includes the establishment of a charitable trust for line companies to share the complexity, risks, and costs of migrating to what was then untested in NZ asset management soft ware for recording power and fi bre networks. His Engynious energy solutions company has its NZ base in Wellington. With his two children on strong educational paths, Parker is mindful of the contribution he can make to the future of (clean-powered) education in Aotearoa.

“This is a topic so critical to the future of our students. With my own children having won scholarships to a Canadian University and another a full scholarship to UK’s Cambridge University (Sir Douglas Myers Scholarship), I truly understand the power of education and that I feel a need to give back too.” So, what are the main barriers to progress in the school solar sphere?

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Vendor Engagement

Boards of Trustees and principals are, more oft en than not, timepoor and lack the necessary expertise on the whole to determine the requirements of their school’s clean energy and energy effi ciency transformation strategies. It’s these stumbling blocks that can bring a swift end to best laid plans and intentions to push forward into a cleaner power programme. Parker explains how he worked as a project manager to help a New Zealand school complete and submit project documentation to their Ministry of Education Property Advisor. “For another, I worked out the MoE architect design standards regarding watertightness,

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electrical solar interconnections, and working from heights. Plus, I costed a system for another school to show the premium they were been made to pay. One school I helped because a vendor had walked away, another didn’t provide the power consumption profi le of the new HVAC system, for example. “I have many more examples of lessons learnt that, if shared, would assist so many schools hence the need for the Clean Energy Schools Trust governed by the schooling sector.” His push for a sector-wide Clean Energy Schools Trust, he says, would provide a mechanism through which to share learnings, expediate solar energy production and monitor progress.

Financial Management

Access to low-cost capital funding because schools are capital-poor is another block to progress, says Parker, even if schools are managing sound operational budgets. “BoTs and principals lack time to fully understand return on investment calculations and how to deal with the NZ solar vendor sector in terms of design quality-control, fair-pricing and electrical/regulatory standards. Plus, they oft en struggle with how to deal with electricity retailers; NZ has a skewered domestic vs commercial electricity variable rate system that can penalise schools. “Again, this is where a Clean Energy Schools Trust is needed, otherwise a sizeable number of schools simply won’t be able to aff ord solar given how many schools pay an extremely low variable rate and very high fi xed rate for grid supplied electricity, so they will need a donation from the trust to make it work.”

Leap of Faith

Overcoming reluctance by boards of trustees and principals to step into the unknown to adopt and adapt to change can add value to a school in numerous ways. “Implementing their school’s climate and energy transformational learning packages backed up with experiential learning approaches,” says Parker, is multibenefi cial. He has experienced “real reluctance by schools to implement anything new while they are understandably swamped with mandated changes to the curriculum and so will only consider it if other schools have already done it. “The need is now to provide a noncommercial orientated education package to students explaining climate change and what it really means and how, through true comprehension they may feel bett er about what they can do and how their futures are secure.”

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Allaying fears and eff ecting change – fast – is important, says Parker. “For the uptake by students to be at a pace that, actually, our families need, we have to have a mixture of student and teacher change-leader-development courses, in-class enhancement materials and student focused self-learning education.” He cites apps such as the UK-centred Solar for Schools app and says that although the internationally sourced material it contains “is 99 percent applicable to NZ”, it needs “Kiwi-ising”, as do the other education components. He sees the creation of a Clean Energy Schools Trust as key to providing governance, resources, and a shared platform for teachers to standardise the education to all schools.

Having the confi dence to take the leap and be assured of the viability of the venture is paramount to schools. At Kerikeri High School, a retired engineer grandparent of current pupils gave his stamp of approval, which proved pivotal to the project’s progress. Not only has the school experienced huge power cost savings that will increase over time, teachers have explored ways in which the accumulating solar power data could be incorporated into a range of curriculum areas. It’s been a school-wide success.

Parker says, “I’m keen to share insights and lessons learnt between schools, as they face one of the biggest transformational challenges in recent times.” A background that includes working in the tertiary sector, government and perhaps most signifi cantly, leading roles concerning technology and organisational transformation, have put Parker on the path he now treads: “Much of it, volunteering my time to support [schools] to access low-cost funding, free in-class resources and internationally sourced interactive education on climate, energy designed to instil a belief in a brighter future for our students, tied to the UN Sustainability Development Goals, STEM and OECD 2030 Future Concept model.” New Zealand Green Investment Finance (NZGIF) was established by the government, “to accelerate investment that supports decarbonisation in a way that lowers domestic emissions, crowds-in private fi nance, makes investments on a commercial basis, and undertakes a market leadership and demonstration role”. Last year, NZGIF announced it was continuing its investment in solar by providing an $8 million senior debt facility to fi nance solar panels on schools across New Zealand, alongside energy services provider solarZero. The energy initiative solarZero Schools was launched in 2021 to enable Kiwi schools “to convert sunshine into solar energy to power their school and contribute to an increase in New Zealand’s renewable electricity generation capacity” by sett ing up a facility to provide fi nancing for the installation of solar arrays (including operating costs) using power purchase agreements (PPAs). NZGIF reports it is also holding $10 million in reserve for future extensions to the fi nance facility as demand grows. NZGIF CEO Craig Weise said: “By fi nancing solar panels on schools, we are helping demonstrate in a tangible way to future generations what a low carbon world can look like. NZGIF’s fi nance will enable solarZero to deploy distributed solar across schools. This investment will accelerate the uptake of distributed renewable energy projects and contribute to the decarbonisation of the education sector.”

A key feature of NZGIF’s facility is its ability to scale to meet demand across the education sector, it says. But is the demand there? Progress appears to have been slow.

To date, the government has committ ed over $400 million of capital into NZGIF, including over $300 million through the 2021 budget process. As of February 2022, NZGIF has invested $77 million in capital and committ ed a total of $123 million. This includes supporting solarZero to fi nance Power Purchase Agreements for solar installations on commercial buildings, which will enable up to 40MW of solar generation. solarZero CEO Andrew Booth said, on the programme’s launch last year: “Tens of thousands of school students from across Aotearoa have called for action to meet the climate emergency head-on. Now, for the fi rst time, there is no fi nancial barrier to stop schools from going solar to lead the way for our communities' transition to 100 percent renewable energy." Pandemic delays and subsequent supply chain pressures have aff ected installation of solar panels through the solarZero Schools programme, according to NZGIF. An update request on school investment progress made so far by solarZero was not provided prior to print deadline. Parker says: “We must fi nd a way to bett er support schools if they are to speed-up their transition to clean energy and provide internationally expertcreated education on what is climate-change and how today’s students can adopt to it now.”

Access to low-cost capital funding because schools are capital-poor is another block to progress

– Simon Parker

Has your school made the switch to solar power? What have been some of the learnings or barriers that have led to your school adopting this or deciding against it? We’d love to hear from you at mail@schoolnews.co.nz

The smarter, electronic way to run key-based access control

eCliq is a wireless access control system which enables schools to regain and maintain control of their locking system.

For those who need to monitor and control access to their facilities, the reality of navigating streams of different people at any given time and ensuring that those who are authorised to have access to premises can easily do so, and those who don’t are prevented from entering, can be a huge challenge.

It may be surprising that one of the most sophisticated, up-to-date access and security devices looks, at first glance, like one of the oldest. Based on the traditional lock and key, eCLIQ retrofits seamlessly into existing locking systems; cylinders are made to the same dimensions, and all electronics are selfcontained, powered by a battery within the key.

Without the need for wiring, eCLIQ electronic keys offer features like programmable access rights, time scheduling, audit trails and blocking of lost keys. Simply put, if one of these is mislaid or taken away (either inadvertently or intentionally) the facility manager isn’t landed with the onerous task of rekeying the entire facility. See who opened what door and when, easily change a person’s access rights by sending information to their key and control the time periods when keys are operational.

Installation is simple and straightforward, both for new school construction or retrofitting to existing doors at established schools. • Lost keys – Block or eliminate any lost or stolen keys to maintain the integrity of your system without having to replace the locks • No wiring – Gain the functionality of access control without the hassle and expense • Audit trails – See who opened what door and when

• Change access – Easily change a person’s access rights by sending information to their key • Schedule access – Control the time