Eastside schools to tap sun's power

Some of Lake Washington School District's portable classrooms will soon be powered by the sun, making it one of the first districts to use solar panels on prefabricated school buildings.

The district will begin the pilot program in three schools starting next school year, and, depending on how well the panels work, it may install them on all portable classrooms, said Forrest Miller, the district's director of support services.

"We don't know of any other districts ... using solar panels on portables in this state," Miller said. "If this pays off, it'll spread like wildfire."

Portable classrooms are considered energy-inefficient and costly compared to classrooms inside a school building, Miller said. The Lake Washington district has been searching for a way to cut the cost, but until recently, solar energy didn't pencil out against regular energy prices.

The increasing cost of other energy sources and drops in the cost of solar technology have made the program feasible, said Kathryn Reith, the district's spokeswoman.

"This could cut down on the energy we need to buy for energy hogs like portables," Reith said.

During the summer break, the district plans to install the panels on eight portables at Smith Elementary in Sammamish, 11 portables at Rose Hill Junior High in Redmond, and three portables at BEST High School in Kirkland. Programmable thermostats, which turn heating on during school hours and off at night, also will be installed in the portables to save on energy costs.

The panels will be most effective when it's sunny, but even on cloudy days the panels will be able to absorb energy from sunlight, Miller said.

District officials announced their plans on a sunny Wednesday morning as they celebrated the installation of another solar-panel project at Redmond High School. The high school is the first public school in King County to use solar power to offset its energy costs, Miller said.

That program includes four large solar panels visible from the school's main courtyard that provide a modest amount of power to the school. The solar energy will be used to supplement the energy from Puget Sound Energy, Miller said.

Rachel Tuinstra: 206-515-5637 or rtuinstra@seattletimes.com