School District 58 will not pursue placing solar power panels atop two high schools in Merritt and Princeton.
The project was on the agenda for the February school board meeting in Princeton, where trustees made it clear they would not pursue it any further.
“It’s put on the shelf,” said School District 58 superintendent Steve McNiven. “It’s not that we won’t consider looking at it again in the future if the economics and feasibility of it were to change.”
In January, SD 58 operations manager Darrell Finnigan presented a report to trustees outlining the feasibility of installing the green technology at each school, saying the panels could pay for themselves within their 25-year lifespan.
However, those numbers were based on the systems performing at optimal levels, which wasn’t likely during the winter months.
The amount of power each school would be allowed to put back on the grid was limited and and there were also no grants available for the project.
The project would have involved placing 150 solar panels at Princeton Secondary School and 357 at Merritt Secondary School, costing more than $400,000 combined, and it was deemed that the project didn’t make sense from an economic point of view.
