SEQUIM — The forecast calls for green jobs, and Sequim is situated to grow its share.
The evidence is high on the roof of the general education building at Sequim High School under Sequim’s famous “blue hole”: 10 new solar panels that will generate power the school will sell back to the Clallam County Public Utility District grid.
That’s the prediction of Bill Seabolt, whose students have embarked on a voyage into the world of renewable energy with the help of a $25,000 grant from the state.
Seabolt, a retired chief engineer who spent 30 years working on Alaska’s state ferries, teaches engineering technology at Sequim High.
In the past, that has meant diesel mechanics, electrical systems and other traditional technologies.
Now it also means solar energy mechanics, as Seabolt’s students measure and monitor the power generation from their just-installed array.
PT installers
Power Trip Energy Corp. of Port Townsend put the solar panels on the roof last week, and that alone cost about $20,000.
The rest of the grant, plus funds from the school’s technology-education budget, paid for an “alternative energy module,” a small unit equipped with a solar array and a wind-powered generator and fuel cells.
While the rooftop array is off-limits to the students for safety and building-code reasons, this module is a hands-on learning tool, said Stuart Marcy, director of career and technical education at the high school.
It comes with about 90 hours of curriculum on alternative energy sources, he said.
The solar-power grant application was spearheaded in part by the late Sandy Smith, who taught alternative education for many years in Sequim.
And true to Smith’s belief in living green — she started a paper-recycling program in the school district — it’s also about opening students’ minds.
‘Expand horizons’
“There’s a lot more out there than auto shop,” Seabolt said. “I’m trying to expand their horizons.”
From now till summer, his engineering students will learn just how much energy Sequim’s vaunted sunshine can produce.
They will be able monitor their new array on the Web, Seabolt said.
And since a portion of the solar harvest can be sold back into the local power grid, they will also see how sunlight makes money.
Jeff Randall, a spokesman for Power Trip Energy Corp., noted this part of the planet enjoys premium weather for solar energy.
“The Sequim area is quite sunny, but not that hot in the summertime, [and that] is a good thing for solar power generation,” he said.
Wires expand in warmer weather, but when it’s colder, the wires contract so the their resistance is reduced.
And when resistance diminishes, Randall added, the voltage from the solar module increases.
“One of our best-performing residential systems in Sequim performs nearly as well, per kilowatt, as the community solar array in Ellensburg, in the eastern, ‘sunnier’ part of the state,” he said.
And even on cloudy days, solar arrays generate power — not as much as on a clear-sky day, but enough to make it worthwhile.
No summer vacation
And this summer, when the students are doing other things, those school solar panels will still be laboring.
Ian McAndie, 17, is one of the students in Seabolt’s early morning engineering class. He hopes to become an architect and said he appreciates the hands-on aspects of the course.
“It shows how you can actually apply greener technology to building a house,” McAndie said.
Power Trip Energy Corp., meantime, is a small company that slowly has been expanding its reach since Steve Carr and Andy Cochrane founded it eight years ago.
They and Randall, not surprisingly, are optimistic about the field.
“There will be jobs in the solar industry for the high school students of today,” Randall said, adding that nationally the industry is growing about 30 percent per year.
Electricians will be needed to install arrays, companies will need sales people who know the product, manufacturers will need electrical and structural engineers, physicists, business managers and marketers, he said.
Research scientists will be another critical element, and “renewable energy law is a growing field in the legal industry.”
More arrays
Both Seabolt and Marcy envision more solar arrays on school rooftops around Sequim.
Now that the infrastructure is in, Marcy said, it will be a matter of finding grants or other funds to buy more panels.
“We hope the school district sees this is a good investment,” he said, adding that he believes panel prices will come down.
Meantime, anyone with a Web-connected computer will be able to see how much energy Sequim High School’s solar array is harvesting.
“This is our research and development,” Seabolt said, “that’s going to be available on the Internet,” for solar scientists around the world to study.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
