Fifteen schools in Wayne County, West Virginia, are getting solar power, and the district says the energy savings will fund teachers’ salaries.
Six rooftop solar systems are now finished, with nine more under way across the district. The projects are expected to cut electricity costs by about $150,000 to $200,000 per year once all installations are complete. For a rural district where energy is a major operating expense, that’s money that can go straight back into classrooms rather than into utility bills.
West Virginia–based solar company Solar Holler is developing the installations. The district signed a long‑term power purchase agreement (PPA), which locks in a fixed electricity rate without requiring the schools to pay upfront construction costs.
How corporate buyers helped make solar possible
The financing that made the projects viable came from Ever.green, a marketplace that connects companies looking to buy long‑term renewable energy certificates (RECs) with projects that need funding. Ever.green aggregated demand from corporate buyers willing to pay for what it calls “High‑Impact RECs,” which support new renewable energy projects and community benefits.
Those REC contracts created an additional revenue stream for the solar developer, helping move the installations forward while ensuring the school district could secure an electricity rate that delivers immediate savings.
“In some of the projections we were looking at over the life of this PPA, it’s basically going to fund two teaching careers,” said Todd Alexander, superintendent of Wayne County Schools. “The companies that have been involved in our project, they’re helping contribute to our savings, which is helping us provide services for students. So it’s a benefit for the entire community.”
Cutting costs and emissions at the same time
In addition to lowering utility bills, the solar arrays are expected to avoid about 2,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year. That’s roughly equivalent to removing around 560 gas‑powered cars from the road annually.
The project also brings clean energy investment to a region historically tied to coal production, while supporting local jobs tied to building and maintaining the systems.
Nearly 8,000 rural school districts across the US face similar budget pressures and collectively spend billions of dollars annually on energy. Projects like this one show how external financing structures can help schools install solar without upfront capital costs, while delivering both cost savings and emissions reductions.
Read more: West Virginia just hit a solar milestone but there’s a major catch
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