Our schools are finally going solar!

Upperchurch National School in Tipperary is the first Friends of the Earth Solar School. Panels were installed over the Halloween mid term break, and the school is now generating its own electricity right from its roof!!

We have four more to go in Dublin, Limerick, Mayo and the Aran Islands. We think every school should be a solar school by 2025, and we are lobbying hard at Government to support this.

And they are listening! Minister Murphy has committed to changing the planning regulations, so schools dont have to apply for planning permission which they do at the moment for even one solar panel AND the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland have disclosed they will be offering grants for solar panels for schools from next year.

Support for our Solar Schools 2019 comes from the Tomar Trust, Eirgrid, and Tipperary Energy Agency. We are deeply grateful to our partners for sticking by us. It should be easier!

With solar panels going up on our first schools, now is the time to launch ‘Solar Schools 2020’ where we will be helping at least eight more schools across Ireland become solar schools.

Minister for Education, Joe McHugh, will launch the competition with us later in Novemeber, and you can pre-register your school here.