If you live in the Larkhall area, you may have noticed the solar panels now installed on St Mark’s school!  The work was carried out over the Easter holidays and we went to visit the school to see how they felt about the panels.

The Headteacher, Mr Barnaby Ash, said:

“The panels are looking really good and promote the environmental issues that we are all aware of and this shows us all that St Mark’s is playing a part in our social responsibility by saving on energy.  School budgets are really tight and where we can make costs savings on energy, we then have more money to spend on students education, so we see this as a double benefit. Our vision as school is ‘being a force for good’ – in school and also the world beyond and so we see our helping with climate issues as being part of the force for good.”

It was also great to speak to Vanessa Williams-Grey from the PTA who is thrilled to see the solar panels in place and feels that it is a really good step forward to reducing St Mark’s carbon footprint.

Student Elspeth is pleased that St Mark’s is taking this step to help the environment and Harry likes the fact that the solar panels are using greener renewable energy.

Watch the video we made!

Some factoids for you:

St Mark’s has been fitted with 176 solar panels which means a PV Generator Output of 70.4 kWp.

This means an estimated PV Generated Energy per year of 66,318 kWh with a carbon saving of 14 tonnes per year.

This installation will meet 24.8% of the school’s electricity demand.

And, in case you haven’t had enough facts – this installation will generate enough energy to power an electric car for 331,600 miles per year. That’s 13 times around the earth each year!!