FAQ

PV is short for photovoltaics (photo meaning light, voltaics meaning electricity). PV panels on your school roof can use energy from the sun to generate electricity for your school.

No. PV panels provide electricity. Solar hot water systems use a different method to capture energy from the sun. See separate questions about solar hot water.

It is possible to store excess electricity generated during the day using a battery back-up system. However, Sunskool offers a "grid connect" system which doesn't store surplus energy generated by your PV panels, but feeds it back to the main grid. You will receive credit from your power company for any power that you put back into the grid. In turn, at times when your PV panels are not generating electricity (during the night, on a very overcast day or when your power demands exceed the amount of power being generated by your PV panels) your school will be supplied with electricity directly from the main grid.

 It's actually rare for your PV panels to generate more electricity than your school is using at any one time. There are many different size systems, but the largest of these are quite expensive. It is more likely that you will have a system whose capacity allows you to reduce, but not eliminate, your need for electricity from the grid.

The grid connect inverter will automatically shut itself off within a few milliseconds of a blackout, to avoid the potential of a dangerous "brown-out", which has the capacity to damage equipment, in your school and to prevent back-feeding the grid.

You would need battery back-up. This is no different from other schools, businesses and households without solar power systems.

Electricity providers will not make cash payments, but your electricity provider will provide credits against your current or next applicable bill for kilowatt-hours generated. Your electricity meter will keep track of how much electricity you export to the grid on sunny days and how much electricity you import from the grid when your school is using more energy than your solar panels can provide at the time.

Your PV panels will be connected so that they will be your school’s first source of power. If your energy demand exceeds the PV panels' output at any given moment (for example at night or if you have a large number of appliances running at once), your system will automatically draw down the additional required energy from the public electricity grid.

If the solar PV panel system at your property is producing more electricity than your school is using at a given moment, your electricity meter will spin backwards as power is fed back to the main grid.

Solar hot water systems are storage systems and, depending on your climate, can heat up to 90% of your water free using the sun's energy. A solar hot water system usually consists of a solar collector located on the roof, facing north, to heat your water, and an insulated storage tank to store your hot water. To provide hot water on cloudy days or when demand exceeds supply, most solar water heaters come with a gas or electric booster.

Yes. A solar hot water collector panel is generally located on the roof, facing north, to harness solar power to heat your water. There are two main types of collectors: Flat Plate Collectors (great for when your storage tank is also mounted on or in your roof), and Evacuated Tube collectors (great for frost-prone regions).

Depending on the climate in your region, solar hot water systems can heat up to 90% of a household's hot water free using the sun's energy. So you will be contributing to greenhouse gas savings from day one. Most schools tend not to use very much hot water so similar results are possible. How quickly your energy savings will repay your initial investment depends on the type of system you install, how sunny your region is and how much hot water you use.

These two different types of collector panels both capture energy from the sun to heat water, but they do this in different ways. Flat plate collectors work on copper pipes running through a glass covered collector which gets hot as the sun shines on it. The hot water can then thermo-siphon itself in and out of a connected hot water tank (usually also on the roof), thus heating the water. Evacuated tube collectors use a glass tube with a vacuum inside it and copper pipes running through the centre. The copper pipes are all connected to a common manifold which is then connected to a slow flow circulation pump which pumps water to a storage tank below, thus heating the hot water during the day. Because of the pump the storage tank can be further away from the collector panel. Evacuated tube collectors are also preferable in frost-prone regions.

Yes. You may have previously received other government grants, but you are still eligible for a National Solar in Schools Program grant of $50,000 to use on solar power generation, rainwater harvesting or other sustainability initiatives.

If you have a large school, and would like to implement a large solar power generation installation, it may cost more than the $50,000 available through the Federal government's National Solar in Schools Program. In that case, you might choose to have a fundraising drive to source additional funds or seek solar PV panel sponsorship from your local community. Often the local community will really get behind school sustainability initiatives.

The data that is produced about your school's power generation, and power consumption if you are montoring that, is sent across the Internet to data servers, ready for use in graphs and comparisons so you can see your system in action.

 The data is protected in transit using SSL technology, and our data servers are stored in a secure facility, and expertly monitored and maintained by our hosting provider to ensure your data is never compromised.

If you want your power consumption figures only to be visible to users from your school, please advise us, as this can be arranged. By default, power generation and usage figures are availalbe for people interested in your school to view.