Minersville Area school board members approved going forward with a $6.5 million solar and roof replacement project at the district’s high school.
The school is tagging Quandel Energy Solutions to lead the Guaranteed Energy Saving Act project. In return, Minersville Area School District will receive $1.9 million in tax credits that it plans to use on future infrastructure projects, like repairs it says are necessary to its elementary school building.
Minersville Area has already received a $500,000 Solar for Schools grant to pay for some of the project.
“This is not just about addressing the current needs. It’s about a long-term planning by leveraging our current debt capacity,” Minersville Area Superintendent Michael Maley said this week.
To fund the project, the district will issue new bonds and stretch out its debt payments for an extra seven years, pushing its final payoff date on debt service from 2032 to 2039. District Business Manager Brittany Doyle says Minersville Area is currently paying a little more than $780,000 in debt service annually and by 2039, that figure will be about $1.1 million.
By the time the ongoing debt service is paid off, Maley said the district can begin to look at the necessary renovations at the elementary school, which could cost $30-40 million, based on recent estimates.
On Wednesday, the board members authorized school administration to work with Raymond James, as underwriter, Stevens & Lee, as bond counsel, and Solicitor Nicholas Quinn to prepare for the potential adoption of a resolution authorizing the financing for the project.
The vote on going forward with the solar and roof project was nearly unanimous, with only board member James Croley voting against it.
Croley questioned the expected $150-170,000 in expected annual revenue generated by the solar system once it’s online. He was told that that estimate is a baseline projection.
Nathan Calderone, an assistant project manager at Quandel Energy Solutions, told Croley that because this project is under the Guaranteed Energy Saving Act (GESA), the baseline expected revenue projection is guaranteed.
Maintenance around the system and the potential costs of hiring additional staff to address that need also weighed on his decision against the project.
Project Details
Officials say portions of the roof at Minersville Area High School are badly in need of repair. Parts are deteriorating and causing leaks in the building. Aging materials and abandoned rooftop equipment are mostly to blame. That old equipment will be removed and some of the worst parts of the roof will be completely redone.
The district says it could have just stopped with the roof repair project but it likely would have cost about $2 million. By adding the solar system project to it, the district gets back the $1.9 million in tax credits, something it would not have received had it just gone forward with replacing the roof.
The approximately 1-megawatt solar project will have about 1,700 panels installed on the new high school roof and about 2 acres of land. Electricity generated by the solar panels sold to the grid and the sale of Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs) will help the district pay off the debt it’s incurring.
“Every year, we’re basically producing one taxable mill throughout this project and that’s one less mill that we have to ask the taxpayers for,” Maley said. “There’s very few ways that schools can generate revenue. This is one of them.”
The roof will have a 20-year warranty on it. Solar panels and other equipment have a 15-year warranty and a 25-year 86% output guarantee.
Calderone says that the construction phase for this project will begin this summer. PPL Electric will complete interconnection of the system in May 2027.
Maley noted that the district had important deadlines to meet in order to make this economically beneficial to Minersville Area. That means guaranteeing that it receives the tax credits.. An initial deadline of Dec. 31, 2025, was missed, which would have allowed the district to source materials from foreign suppliers and keep the overall cost a little lower.
Meeting a July 4 deadline this year means the school district is still guaranteed the $1.9 million in tax credits but it increased the overall cost of the projjct because domestic materials must be used.
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