MARSHALL — The solar panels outside Marshall public school buildings have been up and running for a few months now – and they’ve already saved the school district money on electricity, presenters at Monday’s school board meeting said.

Brok Johnson of Solar Connection said so far, the solar panels have saved the district about $5,400. Johnson gave school board members an update on the new solar arrays that were installed outside Marshall High School, Park Side Elementary, Southview Elementary and Marshall Middle School.

The solar arrays were built with the help of a Solar For Schools grant from the state, Johnson said. The grant program was developed in 2021.

“Basically, the state wanted to incentivize more solar installations at schools across the state,” he said.

MPS applied and was approved for five solar installations, one for each of the existing school buildings and one for the planned Career and Technical Institute.

“We’re still waiting on the CTE building to get connected, but the other four are up and running,” Johnson said.

MPS received grants covering about 85% of project costs for the solar installation, which came to about $497,000. The district’s out-of-pocket cost was about $87,000, Johnson said.

MPS’s solar projects were among the first completed under the grant program, he said.

“We’re very proud of the fact that the four Marshall school projects that are turned on were the first four projects through the state program. It’s a good accomplishment,” he said.

Johnson also explained how the solar arrays at Marshall schools worked. The solar panels work in coordination with the utility grid. Any electrical demand over what the solar panels can provide for the schools is drawn from the power grid, he said. Part of the project also included real-time monitoring of the solar arrays, so the schools and Solar Connection can track how much power the panels are producing.

The solar panels will start producing more electricity with the changing seasons and longer days, Johnson said. “June, July and August are going to be your peaks.”

Based on the amount of power produced in the first four months of this year, he said, “January wasn’t that great this year, and usually production is going to be lower then. But you still got 20 to 30% of what the peak will be.”

The amount of electricity generated by the MPS solar arrays increased in February, March, and April, Johnson said.

The solar panels were projected to save the school district $22,000 in their first year, Johnson said.