Solar plant plus ener­gy con­sump­tion rela­ted lear­ning envi­ron­ment deplo­yed at Kau­ko­vai­nio School

A solar power sta­tion has been built on the roof of Kau­ko­vai­nio School in Oulu this spring. The plant was comple­ted in May with an out­put of 15 kWp (kilowatts peak), and the goal is to cover about half of the building’s power con­sump­tion during the sum­mer with it.

In addi­tion to the new solar plant, ten sepa­ra­te spaces in the buil­ding will house sen­sors that mea­su­re the amount of car­bon dioxi­de along with room tem­pe­ra­tu­re. Water con­sump­tion in the gym’s loc­ker rooms is moni­to­red with special sen­sors.

The out­put of the plant, data from the sen­sors, and the total con­sump­tion of water and hea­ting will be inclu­ded in a lear­ning envi­ron­ment that the school pupils may uti­li­se in their stu­dies. The ener­gy con­sump­tion will be made visible to the pupils and it can be used in teac­hing for various calcu­la­tion exerci­ses, for example.

The sen­sor network in the buil­ding will be comple­ted over the sum­mer, and the lear­ning envi­ron­ment will be int­ro­duced as school recom­mences in the autumn.

In the futu­re, also return heat from the district hea­ting sys­tem will be uti­li­sed in the school buil­ding.

The­se actions are part of the Making City pro­ject which is fun­ded through the Smart Cities and Com­mu­ni­ties (SCC) the­me of the Horizon 2020 pro­gram­me.