White Pine Renewables completes nearly 1-MW solar portfolio for Chicago school district

White Pine Renewables announced the completion of four rooftop solar projects for La Grange School District 102 totaling 889.2 kW_DC. These projects are the first on-site solar projects contributing to power schools in the district, delivering electricity to the schools under a long-term PPA with White Pine Renewables.

New Chicago constructed the projects, installing approximately 2,000 solar panels across four of the district’s six schools located in Chicago’s western suburbs: Congress Park (172.8 kW_DC), Ogden Avenue (129.6 kW_DC), Forest Road (232.3 kW_DC) and Park Junior High (304.5 kW_DC). As the projects operate, White Pine Renewables and New Chicago will provide long-term operations and maintenance services to ensure that the projects perform as expected.

“The La Grange School Board began exploring solar for our schools for the purpose of reducing our costs and enhancing education for our students,” said Kyle Schumacher, superintendent of La Grange School District 102. “These projects achieved both objectives without an upfront investment from the district.”

New Chicago Partner Eric Graf also noted the benefits of projects for the local community.

“We live and work in this community and our children go to school here. We are proud to be a part of this forward-looking school district that is showing the way for other Chicago metropolitan area schools to go solar,” Graf said.

An important aspect of the project was the educational component. The project team provided each school with curriculum materials to learn more about solar power and has provided access to easy-to-use interactive web portals for students to see exactly how much energy is being produced in real time at each of the four schools.

News item from White Pine Renewables

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Original Source: https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2022/01/white-pine-renewables-solar-portfolio-chicago-school-district/