SD Explained: Solar Panels at Schools

How San Diego Unified is saving on its electric bill

In the last few years, San Diego Unified has installed solar panels at almost 40 school sites. Last year, that meant $618,000 in savings for the district. Now it wants to dream a little bigger.

San Diego Unified is ready to invest tens of millions of dollars on solar panels for school campuses over the next six years. District officials plan to tap into school bond money from a 2012 measure to pull that off. All told, the district's projecting about $4.3 million in savings on electricity bills. Ideally, it'll spend that money on supporting student needs.

But as NBC 7's Catherine Garcia and the Voice of San Diego's Lisa Halvertstadt tell us, it hasn't always been smooth sailing for San Diego Unified's solar impulses. That's on this week's San Diego Explained.

Schools are seeing bigger and bigger electric bills, so the Voice of San Diego’s Lisa Halverstadt and NBC 7’s Catherine Garcia looked into one of San Diego Unified School District’s approaches to reducing its energy costs in the latest edition of San Diego Explained.
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