Calhoun County Schools

Leading the way for West Virginia schools

In 2021, West Virginia became the 29th state to allow solar PPAs. Legalized by House Bill 3310, this type of financing allows customers to install a solar power system on site without any upfront capital cost by contracting with a solar provider to operate solar equipment on the customer’s behalf.

Calhoun is the first in West Virginia to install solar power systems without upfront costs through a financing option newly available in the state, a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). During the term of the PPA, Secure Solar Futures will own and operate all solar equipment and sell the solar energy to the schools at a cost lower than the cost of grid power offered by the local electric utility.

In addition, Secure Solar Futures offers its unique program in citizen science, Throwing Solar Shade® (TSS), a classroom curriculum that complies with West Virginia Standards of Learning from grades K-12, and a workforce development program to train high school students to install solar systems on their own school buildings and at other solar project sites.

Calhoun County Schools received solar energy systems at two campuses. A solar array with 1,000 panels and a capacity of 465 kilowatts was installed at Calhoun Middle/High School in Mt. Zion. Pleasant Hill Elementary School in Grantsville received an array with 289 solar panels with a capacity of 135 kilowatts.

With a total of 600 kilowatts of generating capacity, solar power will cover 36% of the schools’ energy usage and save $2.1 million on energy costs over 35 years. In their first year of solar production, Calhoun County Schools will produce 724,550 kilowatt hours of power, enough clean energy annually to power the equivalent of 60 homes and avoid 639 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, the same amount sequestered by 641acres of forest.