Sauk County coordinated with the Iowa based company Eagle Point Solar to install the solar panels on its buildings. Eagle Point owns the solar equipment used on the buildings that Sauk County pays to use.

“The money that they’re saving, because now they’re buying less electricity from the power company… is more than what their lease payments are,” Huebner said. “They can either buy the panels themselves or continue to lease it over time, but they’re expected to save a significant amount of money over the life of the project.”

Another Sauk County building with solar panels is Reedsburg Area High School. The panels were first installed in 2009.

Learning to change

Science Teacher Amy Workman teaches her students the benefits of thinking about energy consumption and conservation.

“I have two environmental science classes, and one of the units we do in Environmental Science is energy,” Workman said. “Specifically it looks at how energy is produced, how it is used, how we personally use energy on a daily basis (and) what, if any is our responsibility to conserve energy.”

Workman’s students have a final project looking at one particularly energy challenged part of the United States: Puerto Rico.