Island School Solar Panel Group

Date: 22nd January 2011
Press: SCMP

Shining example of power-saving

Jonathan Kong Chun-ho sits in an Island School science laboratory and peers into this monitor. A series of cleanly laid out figures and a bar graph pop up, but he is not in a conventional science lesson.

"What you can see here is a calculation of how much electricity we have saved at school today." he says.

the figures he was looking at link directly to a one-storey-high turbine and nearly 15 square metres of solar panels on the roof of the science block. Together, they supply about 10 per cent of all the power going into the block, every kilowatt of which is measured and recorded for any of the school's 1,100 students to access online.

The figures for that the rooftop systems should produce about 5 kilowatts of power, but they can produce up to about 10kW depending on weather conditions.

nearly 275kW of electricity has been produced, avoiding the burning of fossil fuels that would have sent 200 kilograms of carbon into the atmosphere, in the three weeks the project has been running.

The system also tells Jonathan that HK$280 has been saved in electricity costs in the past month - more than 10 per cent of the roughly HK$2,000 electricity bill the science block usually pays.

It is also an educational tool. Island School launched an International Baccalaureate course in environmental systems this year, which will take advantage of the raw data recorded 24 hours a day. But the benefits extend to geography, maths and science classes of all years. Physics pupils will carry out practical experiments in the efficiency of photovoltaic cells. The carbon involved in setting up the system should be neutralised in 1.5 years and the equipment has a lifespan of 50 years, with little maintenance.

Jonathan, one of the founders of the team of 10 pupils and a teacher, is in his final year of secondary school and came up with the idea in 2009. After 15 months, 700 student signatures on a petition and HK$320,000 from the government's Environmental and Conservation Fund and Environmental Capaign Committee, the system was up and running.

Howard Chow, another pupil involved in the project, said:" When the solar panels were first launched last year, the student body were a little bit doubtful of the efficiency of how it was going to work.

"When we finally saw the wind turbine starting to spin faster and faster our group was basically standing on the playground staring at it in relief. Our hard work had not gone into the rubbish bin."

Chris Ip
SCMP