GAMBIER — The sounds of Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue” drifted across the small park beside Kenyon College’s Village Market Monday afternoon. The music served as a backdrop for a ceremonial switch flip on the newly installed solar panels that sparkled on the market’s roof.
Students, professors, and instructors filled the small park as they introduced the project completed by the Solar Power Systems: Science, Policy and Practicum class. Now in its fourth edition, each class has participated in designing and installing solar power systems on buildings in and around Kenyon College.
Though the design that was placed on the roof of the Village Market was the brainchild of the previous class, this semester’s class of 16 students oversaw the installation.
“The students, of course, are very ecologically minded. Conservation and environmental issues are high-end priorities. It’s a natural for them to be interested in this,” said Eric Holdener, an Assistant Professor of Physics and Scientific Computing.
Since the beginning of the solar power systems classes, students have installed solar panels on a private residence, on a barn at the Kenyon Farm, and on the south-facing roof of the Village Inn.
“The genesis of this class is that Kenyon had an interest in solar,” explained instructor Jerry Kelly. “They had an interest in clean energy and moving in that direction, but they had an even keener interest in educational value. So rather than taking the approach of building one big solar array somewhere at the edge of campus, instead we broke it into a bunch of smaller systems that groups of students each semester can work on evaluating possible sites for small systems and then helping to install a system designed by the previous semester’s class.”
The class spans a variety of majors, though many students come to it from the environmental studies program. Students bring solar power knowledge from their own countries or states to the table – one even leveraged the project into a job in the solar industry.
“We’re hoping that more and more students might take that track,” said Holdener. “It’s going to take some time . . . but as I look around at the students right now we have a couple of international students in today for the first time. We have a student from China who talked about solar power in China, one over there from England who talked about solar power in Great Britain.”
Senior economic major Mary Liz Brady and junior Audrey Neubauer, who is double majoring in environmental studies and anthropology, stood on a bench and cracked a sun joke to start the presentation.
“I didn’t sleep that well. I stayed up all night wondering where the sun went and then it dawned on me,” Neubauer said to a round of wry chuckles before getting down to the reason behind the gathering.
“We’re building a constellation of clean energy systems that ultimately, building by building, site by site, will offset a significant share of the utility power that will be used at that site,” Kelly said.
The class estimates that the system will offset roughly 80 percent of the annual power usage of the two student apartments above the market. The solar power generated from the arrays will be dedicated to the apartments first with any residual power flowing out to the grid, which could be used by the Village Market, the post office, and other adjacent buildings. The cost savings for the college would amount to nearly $4,000 each year.
The solar panel array is a 3.8 megawatt system with 34 total panels affixed to the south-facing, standing seam metal roof with S-5-E clamps. The 34 panels are split into two systems with 17 panels each, which will serve the two student apartments.
“With these newer buildings with the standing seams, it’s much easier to install and keep your solar arrays on there,” said junior Finn Hunsaker as he explained the process of installing the clamps. “They also can withstand a lot of wind force and they’ll be able to stay up there for a really long time.”
Robert Alexander, co-chair of the environmental studies program, was invited to flip the switch on one of the two systems. He was joined by junior Caroline Daughtery.
“I love this class,” Alexander said with a wide grin. “This is one of my favorite things we do. It’s so practical, so fun. Students walk away with serious skills.”
Brady and Neubauer were happy to see the finished product.
“I’ve always been interested in the environment and was on that track. I just thought it’d be a really cool way to give back to the college a little bit and learn something new,” said Brady.
“I didn’t realize it would be such a door-opening thing into maybe a solar career in the future,” admitted Neubauer.
Their class is now working on putting together the next project, which they have proposed to be at the Kenyon Athletic Center. The class will present their five proposals to the college next week.
