Photo courtesy of Jeremiason Photography The Minneota Public School had 82 solar panels installed with All Energy Solar in December on the roof of the auxiliary gym to help energy costs and serve educational purposes.

MINNEOTA — The Minneota Public School District is one of the area’s more recent school institutions that has installed solar panels, and is seeing positive outcomes between energy costs and educational purposes.

“We have 82 panels, and they’re up on our auxiliary gym on the north end of the building up on the roof,” Minneota Facilities Manager Les Engler said. “The project started November 26, and they were up and running on December 26 of 2024.”

Several schools around the area and state have gone the route in recent years of looking into solar panels, with the help of the Solar for Schools grant program from the Minnesota Commerce Department.

“(The solar panels are working) really good. They have served the purpose of what we were hoping for,” Engler said. “Our energy bills are down about 15% compared to last year at this time, and roughly that’s a total of close to about $9,000 (and counting) of savings in our electrical bill.”

The solar panel project for Minneota cost around $120,000, Engler noted, but through the Solar for Schools grant, a federal tax credit and a rebate grant process from Otter Tail Power, the district’s out of pocket was around $9,000.

“Which, as you can see, the savings we have (collected) pretty much already paid for it,” Engler said.

Minneota worked with All Energy Solar for the installation of the project.

“A representative from Otter Tail actually contacted me about it for energy savings,” Engler said. “There were a couple of different grant processes we could go through … So, we looked into it. That’s kind of how it started.”

Michael Thalhimer, All Energy Solar director of Business Development, also noted the increase they have seen with solar panel interest for schools recently.

“It’s been something that’s rolled out over the state over a series of years, and I think 2024 and 2025 have been the busiest years the program has seen,” Thalhimer said. “We love all of our projects … It’s a special endeavor to work with schools, and we get a lot of fulfillment out of it, too.”

According to the Minnesota Commerce Department’s Solar for Schools website, 92 schools in Minnesota have already been awarded grants to receive solar arrays since its launch in 2022, with more on the waitlist.

“(Minneota has) 82 panels for a total capacity of 47.5 kilowatts, and then that’s going to lead to that carbon offset (of) 855 metric tons of CO2,” Thalhimer said. “This is a system that has a useful life of decades … This is making not just a financial contribution to the school, but also an environmental contribution to the area and to the carbon footprint of the school.”

Along with the energy-saving costs, the solar panels serve as another learning resource that students are able to study hands-on.

“It’s a nice tool for them (students) to be able to go out and watch lifetime production of the panels daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. Education (purposes) will be the big thing, of course along with the considerable savings,” Engler said. “The other good thing about it is, along with the educational part, we’re using clean energy.”

“That feels good to us, and I know it feels good to the educators in the district, and hopefully it really impresses upon the students as well,” Thalhimer added. “We, in partnership with the districts that we support, just love to provide those resources, because that is impressionable. I think the students get a lot of value from seeing that.”

The panels were put in and ready for use within a month after the installation process first began.

“(The installation was) very easy. I worked with the State Commerce Department, Peter Lindstrom, and All Energy, they were very good at doing what they were going to do,” Engler said. “They kept me updated on the process and what they needed … Within a month, the project was up and running.”

“One of the benefits of a project like they have at this particular school, is that we were installing on top of a flat rooftop,” Thalhimer said. “When we install solar on top of a flat-roof building, we actually don’t have to make any physical attachments to the building with the solar, it’s all mounted on the surface of the roof. That makes the laying out of the equipment and then ultimately, the fitting up of all the components, really efficient and really quick.”

The Minnesota West Community and Technical College Canby campus also recently installed solar panels, and the Marshall Public School District buildings also have them.

“It was just a pleasure to be able to deliver the system for them (Minneota),” Thalhimer said. “They had the opportunity … To leverage so many different programs available to them, to help ensure that the school gets the majority of what they invested in this project, back extremely quickly.”