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530 students from school districts across California are scheduled to take part in learning about solar energy. Nearly 1,000 students and more than 110 teachers have participated in this program since it was launched in 2012; the enrollment rate for this year’s program is nearly double that of last summer’s. The program is delivered over the course of one week in each participating region, immersing high-school students in a curriculum of projects and activities structured around the acronym STEM: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Students and teachers are teamed with solar industry professionals in laboratory work and field trips to California solar installations. The program concludes with the students presenting their knowledge to a panel of solar industry representatives, school board members, teachers, and community leaders. “As solar power plays an increasingly critical role in meeting global energy demand, students participating . . . may be the engineers and business leaders charting our energy future.” “In the process of learning about solar technology and energy solutions, the students’ enthusiasm and ability to understand complex concepts is very inspiring. Solar power is proud of the increasing number of participants interested in solar power.” The 2016 schedule started with thirty-six students and teachers from Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) joining STEM instructors and California solar professionals at Cabrillo College in Watsonville, California to learn about residential solar power systems. “This is the third year we are offering this program to our students and staff, and we’re excited to get started,” said PVUSD Assistant Superintendent Susan Perez. “[our solar energy education program] brings relevant and real-life knowledge into the classroom, while preparing students for the challenges of the 21st century. We’re proud to support the development of our districts young people with this valuable STEM curriculum during the summer months.” Other Northern California districts taking part in this summer’s academy include Antioch, Benicia, East Side Union, Fairfield-Suisun, Mount Diablo, Napa Valley, Oakland, Pittsburg, San Jose, San Rafael City, San Ramon Valley, Tamalpais Union, Travis, Vacaville, Vallejo, Novato, and West Contra Costa. Central Valley districts enrolled in the program include Dinuba, Kern, Lindsay, Lemoore, Orosi, and Porterville. In Southern California, the districts of Santa Ana, Colton, Fontana, Grossmont, Moreno Valley, Oxnard, Rialto, and San Bernardino City are all participating. In twenty-three districts, the solar power has been installed more than ninety megawatts, which, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, generates an amount of power equivalent to that of 22,500 average Californian homes. In 2014, The Solar Foundation estimated that over 3,700 K-12 schools in the States have solar power installations onsite, serving nearly 2.7 million students across the nation and saving approximately $77.8 million in annual electricity costs. Receive an instant text quote in seconds and see how much you can save on our highest efficiency solar panels.
At 2:30 a.m. EST on June 20, 2016, a plane called Solar Impulse 2, piloted by a man named Bertrand Piccard and powered solely by 17,000+ solar cells, took off from New York City and began a ninety-hour journey across the Atlantic to Seville, Spain. This is but one stretch of the plane’s circumnavigation of the globe to land in Abu Dhabi. The story of this remarkable craft is recounted below. The American designed solar cells that were chosen as the provider for this project produce more efficient and durable solar cells than any other solar cell on the market, and this isn’t their first high-concept collaboration. There was Honda, with whom they won the 1993 World Solar Challenge, a 1,800-mile race of solar vehicles across the Australian outback from Darwin to Adelaide. Twenty years later, an autonomous NASA vehicle named GROVER rolled onto the scene and surveyed Greenland’s frigid icecap. The same technology used in these landmark machines is found in residential, commercial, and power plant solar panels. In 1999, Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones became the first pilots to successfully fly a hot-air balloon continuously around the globe. Upon touching down in the Sahara after more than two weeks in the air, Piccard’s vision—to fly around the world without relying on fossil fuel—first took shape. Soon Piccard and fellow pilot Andre Borschberg founded the Solar Impulse project and set to work researching new developments in solar flight to find a solar energy company worth partnering with. It wasn’t long before they discovered a solar manufacturer that worked with NASA on two flights (Pathfinder Plus and Helios) in the late ’90s. The solar cells developed for these projects were light, flexible, and thin without sacrificing efficiency or reliability. Four years later, a coalition of thirty engineers and twenty-five technicians completed a prototype craft, which boasted the wingspan of an Airbus A340 at a fraction of the weight. 12,000 solar cells were embedded in the wing surfaces, while a flexible, high-resistance film coated the undersides. Solar Impulse 1’s first landmark flight was on July 7, 2010, when it was flown for twenty-six hours straight. It went on a historic run from there, setting eight world records as the first solar aircraft to fly straight through the night, to fly between continents, and to cross the United States, among other accomplishments. Many improvements had to be made for Solar Impulse 2 to make it across the world’s vast oceans. The team’s to-do list included: improving performance and fuel economy; refining the ergonomics of the cockpit; safety improvements including leak-proof circuits for humid conditions and finally, making the plane as light as possible. Solar cell manufacturers have been improving their technology as well, producing cells even thinner and lighter than before. The result was Solar Impulse 2, which began its journey on March 9, 2015 in Abu Dhabi. Its daily routine is to rise in the mornings as high as 28,000 feet, taking energy from the Sun to store in its lithium batteries. As night falls, it descends and glides at a lower altitude until dawn. The plane broke world records last summer, when Borschberg flew it from Japan to Hawai‘i, only touching down for battery repairs. Piccard’s drive to excellence can best be summed up by a comment he once made in a TED talk: “People will tell you it’s impossible, and it’s exactly why we try to do it.” Later, Borschberg helped make the connection to the mission to change the way the world is (em)powered: “To fly with the Sun, day and night, we had to build an aircraft that is extremely energy-efficient. These technologies that provide energy efficiency can be used in your home, in your car, in the appliances that you buy.” We at Semper Solaris salute your accomplishments thus far, Solar Impulse, and will do our part to further the cause in the California solar power industry. Receive an instant text quote in seconds and see how much you can save on our highest efficiency solar panels.
