Schoolgen powers kids' imaginations

The Schoolgen program developed by Genesis Energy in New Zealand aims to to bring solar energy to life in a fun, exciting way to foster the imagination of future leaders and decision-makers.

Genesis engaged Power Technology (PT) to install the systems and ensure that tomorrow’s leaders understand the role renewable energy will play in their future.

According to PT, talking and interacting with school children provides a real chance to cultivate environmentally aware thinking and behaviour; not just theirs, but that of the people around them including teachers, parents, parents’ colleagues, friends and the whole community.

Since Schoolgen began in 2006, Genesis has created a comprehensive program that includes free, New Zealand curriculum-linked teaching resources that any primary, intermediate or secondary school can use to explore electricity generation, energy efficiency, renewable energy and climate change, with a particular focus on solar energy and photovoltaic (PV) systems. A dedicated program website displays the real-time generation data from the solar panels at these schools for anyone to see.

In June 2015 PT installed a 12 kW solar system at Russell School, New Zealand’s oldest school (established in 1839). The school had to fund two-thirds (8 kW) of the system, with Genesis contributed the remaining one-third (4 kW). The power that is generated by the solar will help to significantly reduce the amount of power that the school needs to use from the national grid.

The Schoolgen website displays the amount of power that the system has generated (in the last day, week, month and year).

PV technology was chosen for the program as it represents an accessible form of renewable energy for all of New Zealand. In addition, PV panels are ideally suited to a school environment because they are virtually maintenance-free, fairly unobtrusive, produce no pollution and work silently.

As part of the install, the systems were connected to the internet, with data from the inverter streamed to the Schoolgen website. From this site students can see the output from their system and compare it with other schools in the project. In this way they have been able to see how local weather is affecting their system in real time.

To make the solar program more cost-effective, the planning of up to nine schools was undertaken at the same time — the logistics of which included the design, consent, purchase, freighting and installation within tight parameters.

Of the 50 photovoltaic systems installed throughout New Zealand so far, Power Technology has installed 44, with more on the way. The company also holds the service maintenance contract for the program.