Q: I understand that our two newest schools have been designed to be all-electric schools and will not be using natural gas for heating. How will that work?  

A: Yes, Hastings School and the Lexington Children’s Place pre-school buildings are both expected to be net zero buildings. Both will produce more than 100% of all the energy they need on an annual basis from the sun, without using any fossil fuels.

Hastings School will use a heat pump to move heat from the ground into the building during the winter months and then cool the building by pumping heat out of the building during the summer months back into the ground. Ground source heat pumps can deliver up to 5 kWh of heat for every 1 kWh of electricity used to run the heat pump. That means the total amount of energy needed to run the building will be dramatically lower than traditional buildings. In fact, the design team expects that Hastings School will use less than half the energy of a conventionally designed school.

We’ll be installing solar panels on both the rooftops and in the parking lots. In a relatively new twist, we’ll also be adding energy storage batteries to help lower our electricity costs. We’d expect to pay $250,000 a year for the energy needed to run Hastings School without the solar. But the solar + storage energy system combined with the ground source heat pump will produce all the building’s energy from sunshine, plus generate about $150,000 a year in new revenue.

We’ll have a healthy, zero emissions school that generates a net positive cash flow for the Town from Hastings. What’s not to love about that?