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.