The Aboukir Primary School in rural St Ann is on its way to being fully powered by solar energy following the donation of solar panels by the United States-based Renewable Energy Solar Education and Technology (RESET) Core Corp, last December.

The 10 solar panels, along with an inverter and 16 batteries were donated to the institution following the intervention of a past student of the school Clan Davidson, who works with the organisation.

“Almost everything is operated on it,” Kareen Nevers, acting principal at Aboukir told the Jamaica Observer North East. She said the school is now in the process of requesting that the Ministry of Education change lighting fixtures at the facility so that the solar system will operate more efficiently.

“Once we have them changed to the LEDs then the system will be more efficient,” she said.

Nevers explained that the recently-installed solar system has already been beneficial to the school. According to the acting principal, this was demonstrated during a recent fire which resulted in a power outage to the entire community. However, while the residents had to wait an entire day for electricity to be restored, the school was not affected because it had its own source of energy.

Another advantage of the solar system, Nevers said, is that the ministry will save since it will no longer have to pay huge sums in electricity bills.

Nevers said the installation was approved by the ministry and the building officer for Region Three oversaw the process.

She explained that presently the system is checked daily to ensure that it is operating effectively. It is set up to allow the Jamaica Public Service supply to kick in whenever the batteries are not adequately charged, however, that rarely happens because even on cool days the 16 batteries are charged by energy from the solar panel.

“Even though it is cool here, it is running on the batteries,” she said.

Nevers said presently there are two refrigerators along with other equipment operating on the solar system.

“The only thing which is not on it is the AC in the computer room,” she explained, adding that the computers have been out of service hence the reason they are not connected to the supply.

She said RESET CORP also donated two computers to the school and the institution is hoping to get other computers so its lab can be fully functional once again.

Nevers said the school population was grateful for the donation and is happy to be one of the first schools in St Ann and Jamaica to go solar.

Aboukir Primary presently has 140 students and six teachers on staff.