K-12 school solar tops 2.4 GW, while battery storage emerges as next growth market

More than 10,800 K-12 schools across the country now run on solar power, according to a new report from Generation180. That's about 9% of U.S. schools, with roughly 7 million students, or one in seven nationwide, attending a solar-powered school. Total installed capacity has passed 2.4 GW, more than tripling over the past decade. Schools spend nearly $8 billion a year on energy, their second-biggest cost after teacher salaries, so solar is increasingly used to cut or stabilize those bills. One example cited: Roanoke City Public Schools in Virginia expects its solar program to save $46.5 million over 35 years.

California leads by far, with nearly 2,921 solar schools and about 895 MW of capacity, followed by New Jersey, New York, Illinois and Arizona. But smaller states often have a bigger share of their schools going solar — Hawaii and Vermont top the list at 30%, ahead of Connecticut, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Most school solar systems, about 74% of capacity, are owned by third parties through arrangements like power purchase agreements or leases rather than by the districts themselves.

Battery storage is the newer trend: 155 schools now have batteries, up sharply from about 40 in early 2024, though that's still just 0.1% of all K-12 schools. California again leads, with 109 of those schools. Some projects, like a battery microgrid serving schools in Wakefield, Massachusetts, are designed to cut peak electricity costs while also keeping the lights on during outages.