If you have visited the Hillside in the last eight months, you may have noticed some sleek and bright additions to the Stockdale Arena Hockey Rink and the field behind the Gilder Hall Dormitory. These areas on campus have been enhanced with captivating solar panel installations that have already made a positive impact on the School and are the result of a lot of hard work and energy from the group of people who made it possible.
It all started with one of South Kent’s core values: “self-reliance.”
Board of Trustee Member Tim Richards ’75 wanted to make energy self-reliance a priority after doing years of policy work for GE. With a group of dedicated alumni, trustees, and School administrators behind the idea, the School asked the Buildings and Grounds Committee, chaired by Curt Himy ’84 at the time, to develop a renewable energy project to help with this cause.
Trustee JJ Velez ’99 got the group started by connecting the committee to Mike Doty of Nuveen Green Capital, who proposed the financial model for a renewable energy project that the School eventually used. Rich Chavka and Luz McCarthy guided the project from on campus. Rich, from the project’s earliest days, represented the school in hours of meetings to work through the details of the project and the financing. Board of Trustee Treasurer Jim Garnett ’75 helped secure financial approvals to get the project off the ground, and alumnus Peter Boone ’71 helped the committee create a request for proposals from renewable energy firms. The Buildings and Grounds Committee decided to focus on solar energy to make use of South Kent’s land, and the group selected the engineering firm Earthlight Technologies to design, plan, and install a 498 kW combination ground-mounted and roof-mounted solar project on behalf of the School.
Earthlight, in turn, working with South Kent’s Building and Grounds Committee, discovered great potential with Stockdale Arena and Gilder Hall. The hockey rink is the top energy user on campus, has a high cost of electricity – 20c per KW hour – and receives a lot of sun throughout the day. Gilder is south-facing, and its back fields have limited trees, making it another great spot for solar panel installation. The solar arrays were installed and producing energy as of Spring 2023. As of summer 2023, approximately 40% of the School’s total electricity use is covered by renewable solar energy.
Aside from the incredible environmental benefits the project brings, it also saves the school money on electric bills without any out-of-pocket expense. The project required no upfront payments by the school, and the electricity savings and incentives more than cover financing costs. In fact, utility incentives for the renewable energy we produce result in additional income to the School that is generously cash-positive.
The vision for the future is to increasingly convert propane, fuel oil, and gasoline to electricity and eventually cover the remaining 60% of the School’s electricity here on campus. With the endless work and support of South Kent’s current Board of Trustees and School Administrators, South Kent looks forward to future projects that help conserve the environment and further move the School towards energy self-reliance.