Barker school district investing in a solar array
BARKER — Barker Central School District may be generating as much power as it uses as early as spring 2021 with the installation of solar panels on four acres of district property along Haight Road.
The project has been in the works for awhile and all the pieces are coming together, district Superintendent Jacob Reimer said this week.
The work will be done by Solar Liberty, a New York-based solar panel installation company. To meet NYSEG regulations, the size of the solar array has been cut back, but Reimer said the savings will be about the same, $70,000 a year, from the solar array and a few related projects.
The district will start to see these savings in the first year after the project’s construction, even during a payback period of 18 years. A combination of state building aid and the amount of electricity that the array feeds back to National Grid are projected to lessen the district’s energy expenses as soon as the project is completed, Reimer said.
The related projects include upgrading the HVAC system and changing over to LED lighting, which Reimer said will create “significant savings.”
