The Schoharie Central School District, located in the heart of New York’s Mohawk Valley, recently transformed a former hayfield into a one-acre solar installation. The system is rated at 749 kilowatts of power. The project was funded by $2.4 million in voter-approved capital as well as state aid.
Going forward, the solar field will supply the school district’s power, which had cost about $19,000 a month. The Schoharie array is expected to power the district for at least the next 20 years, giving school administrators long-term financial flexibility.
The New York State School Boards Association says that school districts in the state are increasingly converting unused property into solar farms, thereby reducing their energy costs and having more money to be used for student programs. The districts see these initiatives as increased environmental stewardship, much of which is coming from the interest of students. Districts are identifying a variety of underused spaces – for example land beside bus garages as well as the edges of athletic fields – as viable sites for solar arrays.
The Schoharie project was more than a decade in the making, requiring state approvals from NYSERDA and coordination with National Grid, the local utility. Schoharie County is actively pursuing other renewable energy projects, including the Warner Hill Solar Facility in the town of Schoharie, a 20-megawatt solar farm that will be co-utilized with sheep grazing, and the Rock District Solar project in the town of Carlisle, also a 20-megawatt facility located on private farmland.
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N.Y. school districts turn unused land into solar farms to cut costs, fund classrooms
