On a clear or cloudy day, several Richmond schools are generating energy to help power their facility. Here, solar panels on the roof of Lucille M. Brown Middle School on Jahnke Road in South Side are the latest effort by Richmond Public Schools to “Go Green” and cut energy costs. Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras, Gov. Ralph S. Northam and other officials held a news conference last Friday at the school to announce that the last of 10 city schools now have solar panels. The panels will produce enough electricity to cover about 24 percent of the schools’ electrical needs. The $2.9 million project, which also includes an energy monitoring system, was completed during the summer and was paid for by a grant from RVA Solar Fund, part of the Community Foundation for a Greater Richmond, and were developed by Secure Futures Solar, a clean energy company. The panels will save RPS approximately $2 million in utility costs over the next 20 years, or about $100,000 annually, officials said. Officials said it is the largest solar energy system at a K-12 school division in Virginia to date. The other city schools with solar panels are Huguenot High School, Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School and Oak Grove, Miles J. Jones, Linwood Holton, Blackwell, Fisher, Broad Rock and G.H. Reid elementary schools.
