Melissa Russell
They generate energy and cut down on carbon emissions, but just how much of a difference are the rooftop solar panels at the new Belmont Middle and High School making?
Thanks to the efforts of the student-run Climate Action Club, students, teachers, faculty, and visitors can now monitor exactly that on any given day.
Graduate Ellie Lesser, a former member of the Climate Action Club, said the student group felt it
was important for the public to have accessible, transparent, and understandable data about the benefits of the panels, which were installed earlier this year. The club worked with BMHS administrators, the town facilities department, and the town IT department to arrange for data to be displayed on television screens in the building.
The panels began generating power in March and are expected to save Belmont taxpayers
more than $5 million over 30 years, or about $170,000 annually. They will also help Belmont achieve its Climate Action Plan, which aims to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.
Senior Sadie Taylor said the club plans to create a slide presentation this year to explain how the school is helping Belmont reach those climate goals.
“The data shows how well the panels are working, and if it is a cloudy day, it will be less energy
than on sunny days,” she said.
According to David Blazon, school facilities director, the panels are performing as expected.
“The solar panels were installed to reduce the additional electrical load needed to power the non-fossil fuel High School / Middle School complex. By going with the geothermal system and
all-electric chillers and pump system, the electric consumption is about a third more than the original high school demand,” he said. “The solar system reduces that increased demand.”
Blazon said the school department has contracted with Waltham-based Interval Data Systems, Inc. to monitor the systems, review data daily, and alert the facilities department if anything is not performing correctly. According to Blazon, Interval Data Systems will also make recommendations if they see an opportunity to save energy.
“Any time we are able to save money for the town and help the environment at the same time is
a win-win,” he said.
The data dashboard indicates how many kilowatts of energy are generated, broken down by the day, the week, and the month. Kevin Bleau, a member of the town Energy Committee and Energy Specialist at Belmont Light, said the data could ultimately be used by teachers to demonstrate how much energy it takes to power a light bulb, run an air conditioner, or power an electric car.
“If you produce one kilowatt hour, you could take 10 of the old 100-watt lightbulbs and run them
for an hour,” Bleau said. “If we produce 985 kilowatts today, we could have run 9,850 lightbulbs for an hour on the energy we created today or charge one Tesla. How many e-bikes could you charge? It could be a good experiment in a science class.”
Taylor said now that data is available, she is hopeful the Climate Action Club will be able to
incorporate more climate education into the public schools’ curricula.
“A math teacher could have you solve for how much the oceans are rising,” she said. “English
teachers could have you annotate an article about the Earth. It could be interpreted however the
teacher wants; just use the data to teach a little section about the environment.”