Energy savings led Glendale Unified to install more solar panels
The Glendale Unified School District celebrated the installation of solar panels at Crescenta Valley High School in this file photo from 2012. The investment has paid off, as the district has saved more than $1 million in utility costs between 2013 and 2015, officials said.
In their ongoing effort to harness solar power to curtail utility expenses, Glendale school officials are looking to add more solar panels at nine campuses, including at Glendale High School, where panels already generate power.
The driving force behind the additional panels is the number of dollars the district has saved from its general fund, an amount that exceeded $1 million between 2013 and 2015, according to Alan Reising, administrator of facilities at Glendale Unified.
In all, the district saved $1.080 million in utility costs — about $45,000 more than anticipated.
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“This has actually been a wise investment,” Reising told the school board recently, whose members praised the effort to add more panels. “It has actually paid off.”
The district installed its first panels at schools in 2012, some of which were paid for by Measure S bond funds.
This has actually been a wise investment ... It has actually paid off
— Alan Reising, Glendale Unified administrator of facilities, on the financial benefit of solar panels at schools
In two years, the more than $1 million in savings so far is directly tied to the panels at eight campuses, including at Crescenta Valley High School, Rosemont and Theodore Roosevelt middle schools, and Mountain Avenue, Monte Vista, Marshall, Fremont and Balboa elementary schools.
School officials have not yet calculated the projected savings at Clark Magnet High School, Glendale High School, Mark Keppel, and Columbus elementary schools.
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The nine campuses that will next receive solar panels — most likely beginning next year — include Cerritos, Thomas Jefferson, Horace Mann, R.D. White and John Muir elementary schools, as well as Glendale and Hoover high schools and Toll and Wilson middle schools.
The cost to install the panels at the nine sites will tally about $11.9 million, which school officials plan to pay for with money they have already saved in energy costs and in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds, Reising said.
The overall energy savings over the 30-year life span of the panels at those nine campuses is expected to climb to $30 million, he added.
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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com
Twitter: @kellymcorrigan
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