Mehlville School District, a K-12 school district in St Louis, Missouri, installed a total of 175 KW solar systems at multiple facilities starting in December 2012. SHINE Partners (formally GreanGrid Solar) developed the project with its local installation partner StraightUp Solar. SHINE worked with members of the School District to structure a solar services agreement as the financing tool.
Mehlville was able to utilize the Missouri State solar rebate program and Ameren Missouri 5-year SREC (solar renewable energy credit) program to reduce the capital costs of the system and therefore the related cost of electricity to the School District.
The expected 30-year energy production for the system is 6.60 Gigawatt hours, which has the environmental benefit of saving approximately 5.6 million pounds of coal burned to generate the same amount of electricity.
The roof-mounted systems are located in the Ameren Missouri utility territory, and the Mehlville School District is expected to save approximately 55% on the energy produced by the project.
The installed solar arrays with annual energy generation of 220 MWh is expected to offset a substantial portion of electricity consumed, and the Mehlville School District will consider adding more solar panels to the site as its future energy needs grow.
