Over a period of one year, the Holbrook Catholic school will be able to recoup the electricity used by the school.

At a time when electricity costs are rising, school principal Rob Unsworth said, “the net effect is that we won’t have to pay anything for electricity.”

This is because nine weeks of the school holidays coincides with the summer months that give maximum hours of sunlight to generate solar electricity and minimum hours of usage by the school.

“We get 60 cents per kilowatt hour for the electricity that we feed back into the grid plus an additional eight cents for avoiding transmission use of the system,” Mr Unsworth explained.

A Country Energy grant of $50,000 was received by the school through the National Solar Schools program from the Federal Government.

The $50,000 paid for the 42 solar panels which are attached to the roof of the school hall, installation of the solar panels and the metre system.

Mr Unsworth knows of one other school in the area, St Joseph’s, Culcairn, which has secured funding for the installation of solar panels and metering system.