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Anaheim, Calif., February 25 – Aiken Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Aiken ECI), in Aiken, South Carolina, today received a National Community Service Award from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). The award recognizes Aiken ECI for the co-op’s Green Power Solar Schools program, conducted in partnership with Santee Cooper and the Aiken County School Board.

In 2007 Aiken ECI installed a 2-kW solar panel at New Ellenton Middle School and an Internet-based monitoring system that allows students to calculate how much power the panel is generating for the school. The program also provided teachers a nine-week energy curriculum kit.

Said NRECA President Jack Wolfe: “With a growing push toward renewable energy, Aiken ECI’s solar project gives students a real-world understanding of the challenges involved in adding renewable energy sources to the fuel mix.”

The Aiken ECI green power solar school program puts into practice the fifth cooperative principle: to educate members. According to Aiken ECI CEO Gary Stooksbury, the program is “an innovative educational tool to generate interest and understanding among sixth-graders.”

Working together, the cooperative and the school aimed to educate students about renewable energy and also integrate the study of science with their everyday experience, which includes turning lights on and off.

In conjunction with the solar panel and monitoring system, the curriculum leads students through a variety of exercises. Learning modules focus on “mechanical energy and work,” “heat energy,” “energy transformation” and “alternative energy.”

Science teacher Mary Johnson is enthusiastic about the program. “This curriculum not only sparks interest in green power, but it helps students explore the different ways we get energy and the way it is transferred.”

Austin Hall, a middle-school student at New Ellenton Middle School was also happy with the program, as he explained to Living in South Carolina, “I’ve always been interested in how we can produce energy from new sources. Solar energy is a pretty cool thing.”

Aiken ECI received the award at the NRECA annual meeting. Nearly 9,000 representatives from cooperative electric utilities across the nation are attending the meeting, which convenes February 24-27, at the Anaheim Convention Center, during which they will set NRECA’s legislative and organizational agenda for 2008. In addition to considering and acting upon policy resolutions, delegates receive reports from NRECA officials, hear addresses by key public figures and business experts, and attend panel sessions on major issues affecting electric cooperatives and their consumer owners.

NRECA is the national service organization that represents the nation’s more than 900 private, not-for-profit, consumer-owned electric cooperatives, which provide service to 40 million people in 47 states.

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