BRISTOL — Citing their experiences working with Plymouth, Laconia, Shaker Regional, Moultonborough, and other New Hampshire school districts, Mike Davey and Tim Donovan of Energy Efficient Investments, Inc. (EEI) offered preliminary cost estimates for projects at Newfound Memorial Middle School and Newfound Regional High School, ranging from $4 million to $9 million.
Davey told the Newfound Area School Board on September 22 that those investments would be offset by substantial annual savings in energy costs.
The potential projects include placing a solar energy system on the high school roof at a cost of $1.2 million, but it would have to be underway before next July in order to be eligible for a $299,000 federal grant. The Trump Administration has canceled solar energy grants beyond that date.
Davey said installing the solar array would produce $65,000 a year in energy and maintenance savings, which would cover the cost in about 12 years.
“New Hampshire schools like Dover are really trying to expedite a solar project to get those funds before July of ’26. Hollis-Brookline is another one,” he said.
Installing a solar array would require the approval of the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative.
“There’s something called an interconnect agreement,” Davey said. “We’ve run these numbers. We know it fits on the roof. We know the roof can structurally support it. We know that we can make these savings. What we haven’t done yet, because we need to assess your interest level, is meet with the New Hampshire Co-Op and say, ‘Can we put a system of this size on your grid?’ And in Moultonborough, they wouldn’t let us put a system as big as they could fit. … If there’s interest in solar, we’ll get the New Hampshire Electric Co-Op out here and do an interconnect.”
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