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Markus Silva, a junior, uses a hammer drill to make a hole in the building for electrical conduit while teacher Robert Devlin, bottom left, keeps a watchful eye as students with Gloucester High School’s electrical tech program install solar panels on the school automotive shop’s building adjacent to the high school.
Markus Silva, gray hoodie, and Daniel Alves get their tools ready as student with the electrical tech program at Gloucester High School install solar panels on the school automotive shop’s building adjacent to the high school.
Markus Silva, gray hoodie, and Daniel Alves get their tools ready as student with the Electrical Tech program at Gloucester High School install solar panels on the school automotive shop’s building adjacent to the high school.
Markus Silva, a junior, uses a hammer drill to make a hole in the building for electrical conduit while teacher Robert Devlin, bottom left, keeps a watchful eye as students with Gloucester High School’s electrical tech program install solar panels on the school automotive shop’s building adjacent to the high school.
Markus Silva, gray hoodie, and Daniel Alves get their tools ready as student with the electrical tech program at Gloucester High School install solar panels on the school automotive shop’s building adjacent to the high school.
Markus Silva, gray hoodie, and Daniel Alves get their tools ready as student with the Electrical Tech program at Gloucester High School install solar panels on the school automotive shop’s building adjacent to the high school.
Four Gloucester High career/vocational technical education shops are contributing to a project to make the school a little bit greener, at least when it comes to powering the automotive tech shop with solar panels.
On Tuesday around noon, two electrical tech students, juniors Markus Silva and Daniel Alves, were busy trying to drill a hole in the brick and cinderblock wall at the front of the shop as part of a solar panel installation that is being mounted on the side of the wall, not on the roof.
When completed, seven panels on each side of the garage door, 14 in all, will someday provide power to the busy automotive shop.
Electrical tech instructor Robert Devlin explained how the students were going to drill through the wall so they could run a pipe to the inside. The only part of the system that will be on the outside of the building, besides the panels, will be a disconnect switch.
An inverter will be installed inside the building, and the power will be fed directly into a subpanel. The power produced will reduce the shop’s power taken from the grid.
The students have been working with Cazeault Solar and Home of Gloucester on the project.
Devlin said Cazeault gave them “a really cheap, cheap price” on the panels plus the offer of its expertise and aid instructing the students about the system.
Devlin said the idea started several years ago when he took a solar seminar with other instructors at a community college in Maine. He had proposed putting the panels near the high school’s tower, but a new roof on the school meant not having anyone go on it.
Devlin was speaking with his friend Tim Sanborn, founder of Cazeault Solar and Home, about ways they could install the panels at the school, which took a lot of back and forth with engineers.
The advantage of putting the panels on the auto tech wall is the project will get a lot of exposure, both from people noticing it to getting plenty of sunlight, Devlin said.
Students plan to track the output of the panels and they also want to optimize it. The system has been designed with extra brackets so they can change the lengths of the panel’s legs and change the angle of the panels to see which angle produces more power. They are going to work with the Science Department to use software to track the power output.
The manufacturing/machine shop is going to make new legs for the panels and the carpentry tech shop hung the wooden brackets on the side of the auto shop to hold the panels.
“We reviewed the engineer’s plans for fastening these to the existing structure and we had to verify the code compliance with it based off the engineer’s plan and stamp; we designed and fabricated the structures that are fastened to the concrete wall,” said carpentry tech teacher Stephen Abell, who said his students also put up the scaffolding for the project.
Emily Siegel, executive director of the Gloucester Education Foundation, said a $22,000 grant for the project was approved for funding in 2021.
Its appeal was the cross collaboration among shops along with the green tech component of the project, Siegel said.
“There’s a nice story line behind this whole thing,” said Sanborn, who went to the high school with Devlin in the early 1970s.
About seven years ago, Sanborn said Devlin approached him about building a solar laboratory for the electrical shop. Sanborn said he contributed about eight panels for the lab, which students build to learn about how to install solar panels.
Two years ago, Devlin asked about installing solar panels on Gloucester High, something that has since taken a lot of engineering work. Sanborn said the Building Center also contributed lumber for the project.
“It’s really Bob’s vision,” Sanborn said of the solar panel project.
Ethan Forman may be contacted at 978-675-2714,or at eforman@northofboston.com.
Ethan Forman may be contacted at 978-675-2714,or at eforman@northofboston.com.
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