Lakeville's First Solar-Powered School

A 466.8 kWDC solar array went live on Lake Marion Elementary in December 2021, the first of five for Lakeville Area Schools. This array is enough to provide enough energy to cover 98% of the building's power consumption.

On-site renewable energy helps reduce the district’s carbon footprint, the solar arrays will also save the District on energy bills over the long term.  Financed, designed, and installed by iDEAL Energies, the 1.9 MW that will be online by the end of 2022 and will save the District millions of dollars during the life of the arrays, estimated to be 40 years.

Other projects coming in 2022 include:

After a scheduled re-roofing, iDEAL will return to install more panels at JFK to further reduce their energy burden.

“All of the dollars saved on our energy bill will be able to go back into our operating budget to assist in other projects,” said Louden. “We’re anticipating being able to reinvest in other types of energy saving opportunities.

To fund the project, iDEAL purchased the array on behalf of the District, helping them take advantage of several tax benefits and energy savings, including Xcel Energy’s PV Demand Credit. For the duration of the partnership, the District will buy discounted energy back from the solar arrays under a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA).  The four arrays to be completed in 2022 should save the school approximately $50,000 a year in energy costs, increasing significantly after the PPA ends. Following the PPA, the school will receive all the free energy produced by the panels for the remainder of the system life.  Over the 40 year expected lifetime of the panels, the solar array is projected to save the District over $12.8 Million in energy costs.

To learn more about the solar excitement at Lakeville Area Schools, check out this write-up on Lakeville's website or watch the video here.

In addition to long-term energy savings, the District also benefits by bringing solar into the classrooms.  As with all of iDEAL's education customers, Lakeville Area Schools received standards-aligned curricula for use in both primary and secondary schools. 

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