Engynious covered the cost of the solar generation system’s panels, inverters and mounting racks while the school made a contribution towards the cost of installation which allowed for a net-positive outcome in the economics of their combined solar generation projects.

Before the schools made the decision to enter into a Power Purchase Agreement with Engynious, a funding model where each school is only required to pay for the solar generated electricity they consume because Engynious has funded the system itself and carries all its lifetime costs & risks, both schools first thoroughly investigated whether investing in their own solar PV system made better sense. For transparency we gave each school our calculations showing what the total long-term costs and savings forecasts would be between owning a system versus entering into a long-term PPA agreement, and to ensure they could proceed to make a fully informed decision we conducted a free service to survey whether their school buildings were suitable for installing a solar generation system too.At the end of day a decision to enter into a Power Purchase Agreement with Engynious was compelling for the schools because of the savings in the cost of grid source electricity, and because each school would benefit from using Youdera, our energy monitoring tool, to demonstrate to their students via their school website, the real-time performance for the solar generation system to save electricity while reducing the school’s carbon emissions.Our solution for each school included supply of the durable and high performance glass-glass solar panels from our partner, German manufacturer Solarwatt which were installed by a local installer the school was similar with due to their past work in wiring the school’s new administration block.

Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) Growing in Popularity

Clean solar energy community projects financed by Power Purchase Agreements are growing in popularity as they make efficient use of some of the lifetime savings made through displacing grid sourced electricity with solar generated power, without the need for the clean energy consumer to come up with substantial capital funding and without committing them to all the insurance and maintenance liabilities and costs, including any equipment replacements, such as inverters, over the 30-40 year expected system lifetime once a system comes off its warranty period.The PPA essentially sees a school or property-owner give permission for their roof-space to be occupied by a solar power plant for their benefit, they do not hold any liabilities or carry any costs such as insurance, maintenance or equipment replacement over the lifetime for the PPA term contract. The clean energy power produced is sold to the school or property-owner at a pre-agreed reduced rate from what their current electricity retailer is charging over a flexible PPA term, usually between 10 to 30 years, a pre-agreed term that reflects the optimum affordability for a system that with today’s modern technology typically has a substantial lifetime expectancy of anywhere between 30 to 40 years.You can learn more about our partnership with these schools here:  Case Study: Engynious Partners with two Whanganui Schools for clean solar energy