It’s not your typical solar installation, and cold weather is the current drawback, but when the solar photovoltaic project is completed, Exeter High School in New Hampshire will have a 100-kilowatt solar system, the largest in New Hampshire.

Installation is being done by 55 students from the Seacoast School of Technology, or SST, whose welding, building and pre-engineering studies, combined with the skill of licensed contractors and representatives from Revolution Energy Solutions, will help make the array a reality.

New Hampshire-based Revolution Energy, a design/build/financing renewable energy company, is the impetus behind the solar array, and arranged the unique financing through Provident Bank. Working with a consortium calling itself the New England Seacoast Energy Partnership, comprised of four different entities, Revolution is boots-on-the-roof, assuring that the installation is completed by the end of the year, frigid temperatures and snow notwithstanding.

The array contains 394 15-foot solar panels, and students are working with safety equipment like hard hats and harnesses, to keep them from sliding off the ice-slippery roof. The racks and other mounting gear are already installed, so moving the heavy panels up onto the roof, via ladders, is the last really critical and difficult step. The entire process is also being filmed, and presumably archived, by students from the school’s Digital Communications Program.

But work is also happening on the ground, where Revolution has provided an educational venue via weekly meetings with students that discuss and explain solar energy and other renewable technologies in which the company is vested.

Revolution, which bills itself as a scalable, renewable energy company, will see the first phase, 3 kilowatts, completed by Friday, Dec. 16, with more panels to follow. The last phase is the electrical work. The project may be delayed beyond the end of the year because the racking system was delayed by the manufacturer, necessitating a drive to New Mexico and a 60-hour return trip. Talk about dedication!

When the phased solar project is done, the school will have a 100-kilowatt solar array, the largest in New Hampshire, topping both Stonyfield Farm’s 50 kilowatts and Public Service of New Hampshire’s 51.3-kilowatt array at its headquarters.

The completed solar system will, optimistically, offset up to 10 percent of the school’s electrical needs, saving $20,000 a year in electricity costs. Producing an estimated 80,000 kilowatt-hours per year, given New Hampshire’s solar insolation value of 3.0, the system will also offset 57.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas most implicated in global warming. This is the equivalent of removing 11 cars from the road, or planting 1,064 trees.