School District Moves Forward with Terrill Solar Panel Project

The Scotch Plains-Fanwood school district is one step closer to installing solar panels at Terrill Middle School.

The Board of Education gave the go ahead last week for the Trenton-based Faridy Veisz Fraytak Architects firm to begin preparing plans and specifications for the project. Those plans will then be submitted to the state Department of Education for approval.

Funding is coming via a $312,842.40 grant from the NJ Clean Energy Program. The district received notice last April that it would receive the funds.

"We've been working on this project for a little over a year," said business administrator Anthony Del Sordi. "We didn't receive (the grant) initially, but then there were extra funds in the program, and we were next in line."

Del Sordi said the project in total is working with a budget of about $800,000. The district plans to begin applying now for further assistance from the state Department of Education, which they hope will fund another 40 percent of the project, or about $300,000.

"In total the solar project should pay for itself in about three years," Del Sordi said. "We're really looking forward to this initiative, and hopefully it's something we can apply to other schools when the funds are available to us."

The district will make a full presentation on the project at a board meeting in January.

The Board of Education also announced new equipment for third, fourth and fifth graders during its recent meeting. Two different companies were awarded bids to provide LCD and ELMO projectors for the classrooms. The district will purchase one projector for every two classes. The funding is coming through a lease purchase initiative.