Students in Maryland’s St Mary’s County Public Schools System (SMCPS) have a bright and sunny future in store—the installation of 503 kilowatts of solar power.

SMCPS was one of 21 statewide recipients selected for a Project Sunburst grant through the Maryland Energy Adminstration (MEA). Standard Solar, Inc., a solar installation, development and financing company, just announced it will be installing, owning, and operating the SMCPS installation in partnership with Perpetual Energy, a financier of solar energy systems.

“This project, in conjunction with the Maryland Project Sunburst grant, helps the southern Maryland community to take the first step in commercial scale renewable power generation,” said Mike Sloan, Standard Solar general manager of Commercial Business. “The region can start to diversify their energy portfolio adding to fossil fuel and nuclear power generation. The solar industry has turned the corner from a cottage industry to a healthy and thriving source of real economic development. SSI is honored to take part in this project with SMCPS.”

A Maryland State grant program, Project Sunburst consists of $8 million of stimulus funds set aside by the Governor of Maryland to enable state buildings to integrate solar energy systems into their energy portfolios. In addition to creating jobs and accelerating the solar industry in Maryland, Project Sunburst is helping to offset the community’s carbon footprint.

“Standard Solar, with local companies, seeks to create the knowledge and experience to enable the local community to develop a solar component to their economic development,” said Sloan. “Distributed electricity generation not only benefits employment, but also provides relief to a heavily burdened utility infrastructure.”

Designed with the most current solar energy technologies, the SMCPS project provides educational benefits by giving students and faculty access to cutting edge renewable technology. The system supplied by Standard Solar will provide tools to monitor and study the power output of the system, as well as the weather and detailed component performance data.

“The renewable energy curriculum has the ability to be scaled from elementary, middle and high school content,” said Sloan.

The Sunburst grant offset the cost of the solar system by $1 per watt, which translates in to a 20-25 percent decrease in the cost of the system. Standard Solar, in partnership with Perpetual Energy Systems, financed the (SMCPS) project through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA).

“Our partnership with Perpetual Energy enabled SMCPS to reduce their energy costs, stabilize their energy rate and provide clean, renewable power,” said Sloan. “The PPA provides SMCPS a stable, predictable energy cost for the duration of the contract. This stability aids in annual budgeting, reducing the risk of electricity rate volatility. Finally, the partnership enables long term financing of a distributed generation, renewable energy source. The financing requires no money from the school system.”

Pictured: One of the Maryland elementary schools that will benefit from solar power. Courtesy of Standard Solar.