Students love Mr. Marara’s third hour class, he is a very popular teacher who uses interesting and effective methods to help young people learn including teaching students how to do online research, which is today’s focus.  However, the internet is not working. This is common, so Mr. Marara pulls out plan B - a PowerPoint presentation, but then the power goes out and the generator is broken. Plan C - do tomorrow’s lesson today and hope for power tomorrow. Mr. Marara sighs. It’s important to use technology to prepare students for the next stage of life in the 21st century, but always having to have a plan B/C is draining, wastes valuable time and significantly diminishes the effectiveness of the class.  

The big night comes! Students have been preparing a whole semester for their play. Things are going well until in the middle of the second act the power starts to flicker and eventually goes out completely. No worries, this is normal, and so they freeze and wait for the generator to come on, but this time it doesn’t. The facility manager runs down to the generator house to figure out what’s going on. A spike in voltage fried the automatic sensors for the generator and so it needs to be manually overridden. Finally, after 10-15 minutes the generator kicks back on and the show goes on. Meanwhile, the facility manager decides just to let the generator run for the rest of the show even if the grid power comes back just to be safe, even though the generator costs 5 times more to run than the grid.

Challenges: 

• Frequent and lengthy power outages, which disrupt learning, and inhibit other utilities, including internet and running the pump for the school’s only water source.

• Irregular and volatile voltage, damages equipment 

• Running and maintaining a generator is more than 5 times the cost of electricity from the grid.

• The cost of electricity has increased by 30% off peak and 47% on peak over last year with projected increases of 5% for the foreseeable future.

Installing a solar array with battery storage system will help offset these financial challenges and greatly alleviate the logistical burdens by enabling RFIS to generate 60% of its own electricity, improving the school’s operational resiliency. 

Renewable Energy Innovators - Cameroon (REIc.), is a Cameroonian “design and build” company, which has ties to the RFIS community and specializes in sustainable solar energy systems, has designed and installed a system which will maximize savings over the next 20 years, minimize financial risk and yet provide the flexibility for future expansion.

Specifications:

1. 55 kwp solar array on top of the shop roof.

2. 63+ kwh of battery storage providing 6+ hours of backup power.

3. Off grid supply during the school day.

4. Over 60% of the total (school & staff housing) consumption needs.

5. Significant increase in generator’s operational efficiency and accompanying decrease in operation and maintenance costs.

Benefits of Installing Solar:

1. This solar project helps RFIS meet its financial resiliency goals by creating:

   1. Annual Savings of over $15,000 resulting in a Return on Investment (ROI) of 6.5 years.

   2. Net Savings of $210,000 over 20 years: Approximately $125,000 from utility and $85,000 from generator savings.

   3. Sinking Fund – Raising $20,000 upfront will help seed a sinking fund that will cover the cost of maintaining and eventually replacing the system.

   4. When combined with the Golden Cat Fund these savings will produce over $45,000 in annual funds to help generate greater overall resiliency for the school.

2. In a world where the use of technology is more and more essential, our students need to not only hear about it, but also learn to use it well. This solar project will empower students’ 21st century learning as follows:

   2. • Educational enrichment – the solar & battery system itself will be both a demonstration of how technology can be used in daily life and a tool for explorations in environmental and financial stewardship and STEM applications.

      • Providing consistent electricity, enabling the use of technology and the internet uninterrupted, thus encouraging teachers and students to use tech resources more often.

3. “Clean” 24/7 electricity will help RFIS increase our operational resiliency by:

   2. • Preventing equipment damage and keeping the tech resources and other equipment healthy so that it can be used when needed. This in turn will also enable the school to invest in new technologies since we won’t have to spend as much money maintaining/repairing the equipment we do have.

      • Water is a basic need – solar power with battery storage will mean constant power to the deep well pump, the only source of water at the school.

      • Safety is a basic need - battery power means security lighting, and cameras will ALWAYS be on.

4. The solar + battery system will allow the school to reduce its carbon footprint by 35 tons of CO2 per year. Annually this equates to any one of the following (provided by the epa.gov calculator):

   2. • CO2 emissions sequestered:

i.      580 trees planted and grown for 10 years

or

ii.      41 acres of forest preserved

4. 2. • CO2 emissions avoided:

i.      12.2tons/12,395kgs of waste recycled instead of landfilled.

or

ii.      90,000miles/144,840km driven in a typical passenger vehicle