Section

  • View only 'Topic 1'

    Solar PV Basics and Intro


    Welcome! In this section, we introduce the objectives of this resource center and your responsibilities to best utilize this large collection of resources. Consider it akin to the first day of class, where the professor goes over the syllabus, but in this case, you should pay attention! The topical videos will also introduce how to use and develop a roadmap or business case document, and will provide an overview of basic PV market trends for the U.S. as well as Wisconsin and K-12 schools. 

  • View only 'Topic 2'

    Early Considerations for a Solar Project


    After understanding general market trends, the first real phase in PV project development is to set your solar planning team up for success. To begin, this module presents a course thread-line, connecting important key points and lessons presented throughout this course to provide your solar planning team an understanding of the bigger PV development picture. We then present key considerations to be entertained early on within the process to increase chances of moving forward with a successful PV project for your school, including educational considerations and how to identify solar motivations and align them with project development. 


    • Topic Shorts

      It is important to see how the different steps in developing a PV project are interconnected and build off of one another. This 8 minute video will briefly walk your school through the import take away points and concepts to keep in mind throughout the entirety of this course, pulling a thread-line through topics such as stakeholder scoping, utility tariff rates, net metering, site assessments, economic feasibility, and RFP solicitation and evaluation. 

      Featuring: Amanda Schienebeck, MREA Program Manager

      Often a missed step in solar PV project development is having conversations with your solar planning team and relevant stakeholders about what the varying motivations are for your PV project. To help your solar planning team get started, this 8 minute video will go over many possible motivations and the associated benefits of different investment objectives.

      Featuring: Amanda Schienebeck, MREA Program Manager

      Video Content Coming Soon

      It is vital to take into consideration many aspects of your PV system early on in the planning process in order to maximize the likelihood of a successful campaign as well as to ensure your school is left with an exemplary project. This recorded webinar discusses, at a high level, many of these key considerations including deciding on an ideal system size, what to look for in a reliable system, tapping into incentive and grant programs, procurement methods that meet school district requirements, and developing community support to move ahead. 

      Featuring:
      Amanda Schienebeck, MREA Program Manager

      It is important to consider unique aspects, such as educational component, of PV system design early on in the process. This 30 minute topic video provides, not only an example of a successful solar planning project, but demonstrates how to design education into a PV system early on. Learn the unique aspects of Madison College's PV system design, what educational-related considerations the school integrated into their system design, and showcases the college's final PV product  through pictures, videos, and dashboard data. While this project was designed for college-level education, many key considerations hold and can be transferred to a K-12 educational landscape in PV system design. 

      Featuring: Kenneth A. Walz, Ph.D., AEE REP
      Science, Engineering, and Renewable Energy Instructor
      Madison Area Technical College


    • Section Resources

  • View only 'Topic 3'

    Energy Use and Analysis


    The next step in PV project development is analyzing your school's energy use-- meaning you need to get your hands on some of those utility bills! This section will lay out some of the steps your solar planning team should take to understand the school's energy use and explains how this information informs the PV development process. In this module, we introduce energy analysis topics including: energy generation mix, load profiles, utility tariffs, rate designs, PV system sizing, and energy analysis tools. 

    It's important to note, that you need not develop and analyze your whole solar PV system internally. This section is intended to ensure you have a basic understanding in how solar will impact your energy use and electricity bills. Most solar contractors will provide you a site assessment and financial analysis free of charge. While schools are required to procure solar through a competitive bidding process, you can still choose to consult with a contractor early on in the process for site assessments and financial analysis, In the top of the course, we've compiled resources to help you find a contractor early on in the process. 


    • Topic Shorts

      This 11 minute topic short outlines the basic factors of utility billing by exploring different utility rate designs and schedules, walking through an example utility bill, and differentiating between consumption and demand. 

      Featuring: Nick Matthes, MREA Project Manager

      When you install solar PV, your school will be put onto a unique interconnection arrangement, depending on which utility territory you reside in. This 9 minute topic short explores those different types of utility interconnection arrangements (i.e. net metering, value of solar tariffs, feed-in tariffs, and community solar) and their impact on your PV production valuation and compensation. 

      Featuring: Nick Matthes, MREA Project Manager

      It is important to understand not only your school's utility bills, but when, where, and how efficiently this electricity is being used. This 7 minute topic short gives an overview of common energy sources as well as school energy uses and load profiles.  It also explores the implications of a site's energy mix and load profile in relationship to demand charges. All of these factors are taken into account when determining PV system sizing and location. 

      Featuring: Nick Matthes, MREA Solar Project Manager

      The purpose of this 15 minute topic short is to break down the importance of correctly calculating your weighted average cost of energy ($/kWh) as part of the process of modeling financial assumptions for a PV project. It will briefly go through how to go about calculating this number from your utility bill data, as well as the implications if not done correctly.  When a contractor 'runs the numbers' on your solar project, they will take into account all sorts of different charges on your energy bill, including different time of use rates, other fees, and more. Most often, this will not include demand charges as it is much more difficult to analyze and predict demand charge savings (although you will likely see demand charge savings). This topic is intended to give you an understanding on where this final number comes from that your contractor will use. 

      Featuring: Eric Rehm, MREA Solar Finance Manager

      This 33 minute video will go through a case study example of utilizing energy and utility data in designing your PV system. You will learn about Madison College's PV system, how they uniquely designed it using their energy use data, and what the resulting impacts have been on their utility bills by looking at real system production data.

      Featuring: Kenneth A. Walz, Ph.D., AEE REP
      Science, Engineering, and Renewable Energy Instructor
      Madison Area Technical College


    • Section Resources

      • EIA (website) - U.S. energy information website
      • Energy.gov (website) - lists energy pricing trends and news

      • Municipal Energy Efficiency Technical Assistance Program (MEETAP) - As part of the Office of Energy Innovation, MEETAP helps provide technical project assistance and a second opinion to schools working with contractors on energy efficiency projects.
      • K-12 School District Benchmarking Analysis (PDF) - MEETAP developed energy use benchmarks that school districts can use to compare their existing energy consumption and evaluate energy savings opportunities.
      • Focus on Energy K-12 School Program - Focus provides financial incentives for equipment upgrades that deliver measurable energy and financial savings for school facilities and can get your school in touch with an Energy Advisor
      • ARC (tool) - a free, downloadable and scalable technology platform that provides unique tools to collect, manage, analyze, score and communicate information about the operational performance of spaces, buildings, places and entire portfolios. Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).
  • View only 'Topic 4'

    Assessing and Selecting a Site for Your Solar Project


    After gaining a basic understanding of your school's energy use and utility information, the next step in developing a PV project is conducting an assessment of your site (i.e. determining potential location(s) for a PV system and identifying other electrical and structural information). This module discusses common best practices and resources that site assessors utilize to prioritize and select ideal sites for PV development. Please watch the module videos to gain an understanding of the role that site assessments play in the PV development process. Then, use the resources to internally conduct your own site assessment, collecting information on your school's potential PV site(s) to be included in your RFP. 

    NOTE: It is not necessary to have an outside party conduct a site assessment. It is also not necessary to internally do any of this work either before developing your RFP. However, doing this work ahead of time, and including this information on your RFP makes it much easier for a company to develop a bid for your school and will help you receive quality bids. 


    • Topical Shorts

      The purpose of this 13 minute topic short is to explain how site assessments are utilized to help identify options for solar array placement. This topic short will give an overview of the site assessment process by answering the following questions:

      1. What is a site assessment?
      2. What does the process look like?
      3. Why is a site assessment needed?
      4. What is my responsibility to the site assessment?
      5. How could a site assessment impact my PV project?


      Featuring: Nick Matthes, MREA Solar Project Manager

      This 9 minute topic short will explore the process of how a site assessor will identify opportunities for your school's solar array placement. It will walk you through site selection through the lens of considerations for utility interconnection, project development, construction, zoning, and other related issues.

      Featuring: Nick Matthes, MREA Project Manager

      The purpose of this 6 minute topic short is to explain the site selection process specific to your school's electricity consumption and production potential. It will explore evaluating each potential site's energy consumption, projecting site production, and modeling of system design. 


      Featuring: Nick Matthes, MREA Project Manager


    • Topic Resources

      This eight-hour course demonstrates how to perform a PV site assessment for a home or small business, using the MREA PV Site Assessment Report Template. If your school is interested in conducting your own site assessment, this free access course will do just that by covering site assessments more in depth, using MREA's site assessment templates. 

      View Course

  • View only 'Topic 5'

    Solar Project Financial Modeling


    An important factor in PV project planning is financial modeling of your PV system. Module 5 introduces you to PV ownership options, comparing the risks and opportunities of various ownership models available to WI K-12 schools. We also introduce you to Solar Project Builder, MREA's financial modeling tool. We highly encourage you to use the tool to view, compare, and analyze the financial value and return of various ownership options for your school's PV system. 

    Again, oftentimes solar contractors can provide you a preliminary proposal featuring a financial analysis along with a free site assessment early on in the process (see examples in topic resources below). However, it is important to have a basic understanding yourself of all of this so you can understand how they reached the numbers and conclusions they did. This topic is intended to help provide you that information. 

  • View only 'Topic 6'

    Bid-Ready Solar Projects: RFP Development


    Once you've made the decision to move forward with a project, your team needs to prepare your solar PV project for competitive solicitation. Topics in this section include shaping your project for the market, prioritizing and effectively communicating your "must haves" and preferences, best practices for writing solar RFPs, and suggestions for key components of your RFP including a technical components and evaluation criteria. 


    • Topic Shorts

      This 23 minute topical short will provide a high level overview of the various request proposal options available to be used including Request for Information (RFI), Request for Qualifications (RFQ), as well as Request for Proposals (RFP).

      Featuring: Eric Rehm, Solar Finance Manager

      This 14 minute topical short will go over considerations in the RFP development process, discussing high level best practices and provide suggestions to keep in mind while developing your school's RFP. 

      Featuring: Eric Rehm, Solar Finance Manager

      This 7 minute topic short will give an outline and briefly discuss several common key ingredients to include in a technical checklist for your school's PV RFP, including site specific considerations, respondent qualifications, financial requirements, technical requirements, permitting and interconnection, and O&M. 

      Featuring: Nick Matthes, MREA Project Manager

      This 15 minute topical short will highlight proposal evaluation criteria often incorporated into Request for Proposal (RFP) solicitation so that respondents will understand how their bids will generally be weighed and graded. It will outline important criteria to include, weighting considerations, evaluation rubrics, and ensuring comparability. 

      Featuring: Eric Rehm, MREA Solar Finance Manager

      This 17 minute topical short will provide an overview of administration and promotion of your RFP including pre-proposal conference site visit recommendations, and success drivers. 

      Featuring: Eric Rehm, MREA Solar Finance Manager

      This 13 minute topic short will walk you through Highland Community College's RFP development process. Jill Jansen will discuss what worked for the college and will go over key components they recommend considering when developing your own school's RFP for solar PV. 

      Featuring: Jill Janssen, Highland Community College VP of Administrative Services

    • Topic Resources

  • View only 'Topic 7'

    Running a Competitive Solicitation & Bid Evaluation


    This final section discusses how to get the most out of your school's PV competitive solicitation evaluation process. Topics include a general overview of competitive solicitation process, things to consider prior to going to market, various instruments for market interaction, and designing award negotiation and management to maximize confidence in your solicitation process, outcomes, and selected contractor.  


    • Topic Shorts

      This 27 minute video identifies some general issues related to procurement requirements and best practices for schools. It briefly discusses procurement theory, institutional rules and guidelines, development and use of rubrics, and post selection considerations. 

      Featuring: Mark Pruitt, The Power Bureau, LLC Principal

      This 18 minute video will present and summarize the general process of competitive solicitations, help your school understand the unique aspects of purchasing solar PV, and discuss how to effectively communicate your RFP deliverable objectives to your target audience. 

      Featuring: Eric Rehm, MREA Solar Finance Manager

      This 16 minute topic short revisits the RFP-included evaluation criteria discussed in Module 6 to reiterate the importance of proper evaluation. This video discusses, in general, how to effectively measure and score received proposals and emphasizes the importance of following through on the evaluation criteria your RFP had publicly provided to potential contractors. It goes over best practices in evaluating proposals using your own established evaluation criteria. 

      Featuring: Eric Rehm, MREA Solar Finance Manager

      This 17 minute topic short goes over MREA's contractor selection rubric that we've provided to course participants in the module resources. This short will outline key metrics to evaluate when internally evaluating and selecting a contractor for your PV project. We encourage participants to take the rubric and make it their own, individualizing it to their wants and needs. 

      Featuring: Nick Hylla, MREA Executive Director

      This 19 minute topic short will provide you with a developer perspective on best practices to include in RFP development and evaluation for a PV project for your school. Many of the suggestions outlined in this video reflect concepts introduced earlier in this module; this helps demonstrate that solar developers also agree with and prefer the use of these best practices.

      Featuring: Shannon Fulton, Straight up Solar Vice President of Development 

      In this 9 minute topic short you will hear from Highland Community College and the school's process in developing RFP evaluation criteria. They will discuss what worked for them, the main categories they recommend considering, and resources to utilize. 

      Featuring: Jill Janssen, Highland Community College VP of Administrative Services


    • Topic Resources