Throughout the 2018-2019 school year, students at St. Paul Regional High School classes have been competing with each other to divert the most energy to solar power by charging only their phones. Through the $5,000 Inside Education and BP Energy "A+ For Energy Grant", the SPRHS Science Club was able to purchase and install an off-grid solar panel system. The power harvested is directed to 4 outlets in our Science Wing that students can access. Each class charges up their devices and records the kWh diverted from conventional outlets to our solar outlets.
Throughout the competition, we saw students completing various stewardship acts outside of class such as using "foot power" to go for lunch instead of "car power". We also saw students signing contracts stating that they would commit to charging their phone exclusively with solar power. Overall, we are seeing a culture change at SPRHS where students are opting to take advantage of renewable energy sources to power their mobile devices.
As of May 31, we had diverted over 32.5 kWh by charging only cell phones. Considering the fact that most cell phones consume 5W when charging and gain a full charge after about an hour, 32.5 kWh is equivalent to providing a full charge to over 6,500 phones. That's more than the population of St. Paul!
This competition was wildly successful and we are looking forward to repeating it indefinitely into the future.
A big thank-you goes out to Inside Education for their support of this #APlusForEnergy project!
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For more information
4313-48 Avenue
St. Paul Alberta
Canada T0A 3A3
www.stpauleducation.ab.ca
