While there is greater oversight for installing solar projects on school grounds, M Bar C Construction has found success in this segment of the market and has done so through building solar carports. Bobby Bonfanti, eastern division manager, and Erik Krivokopich, VP of business development at M Bar C, are on this episode of Solar Spotlight to shed some light on why carports are the ideal solar solution for schools.
A written portion of this podcast is below but be sure to listen to the full episode on your preferred podcast service.
How do schools benefit from solar installations?
Erik Krivokopich, VP of business development, M Bar C Construction
Erik Krivokopich: Outside of the obvious reduction energy costs, there’s a whole bunch of other values people don’t really think about. It’s an educational value, specifically with STEM-based subjects. Strategically designed systems allow for schools to store energy to power facilities during emergencies and grid outages. These provide shade from inclement weather. There’s a bunch of incredible reasons to do school solar.
Why solar carports vs. other Installations?
Bobby Bonfanti: Even with land, some schools don’t have the ability to put things like ground mounts on a property, so they’ve got improved areas in these parking lots that just are really great for solar carports to be added to. Putting solar on top of existing conditions with roofs, you don’t know how old some of the structures are, what they were designed to, and then retrofitting those become challenging. So, you can add cost to trying to do rooftops.
How has M Bar C honed this process of successful school installations?
EK: We’ve done over 1,500 carport and shade structure schools nationwide, so that’s a lot of practice. We’ve really tackled a bunch of different types of installations, from parking garages to amphitheaters, rooftop installations, we’ve done it all. There’s a lot of coordination with, superintendents for districts, principals, teachers, students. Handling that type of logistics concern for long periods of time and helping coordinate with our clients on how to control their client’s expectations to the best of their ability, and stage all these materials — and try to make sure that there’s efficiency with the least amount of disruption — has been one of our biggest successes through those 1500 installations.
Having completed so many of these installations, what are some that you’re most proud of?
Bobby Bonfanti, eastern division manager, M Bar C Construction
BB: We’ve had a great history of different types of projects. People think of school districts, and they just think of elementary schools, middle schools, high schools. We’re starting to see a lot of colleges move towards this. They have more land, they have larger parking lots, they have parking garages. Recently we completed a college in Massachusetts that was a parking garage in the middle of their facility and logistically you still have to work around this school being in in class all year round.
EK: Now, we’ve also done a lot of bus depots. It’s a great use of space. It keeps the busses clean and easy to maintain, keeps them out inclement weather. But it’s also generating power. These are some large installations that are 15-ft in the air that really are creative ways to generate power for the district. We’ve done multiple-megawatt bus yards. One of the districts we did here in California wanted to electrify their entire bus fleet, and they were the first one to do it. They were able to electrify half their fleet just on the school bus yard installation that we did. They’re getting pretty creative on how to put solar in school districts.
How often are you pitching to schools, or are they coming and seeking you out for these projects?
EK: A lot of times we’re coordinating on a public RFP, where the school district will request solar, and then multiple developers will give a best and final price to the district, and then they’ll select based on qualified bidders. There are districts where they come directly to a single developer, and want to have that single developer build for them. We’ll coordinate individually with that developer. It just depends on the location of the district and how they want to approach their solar expectations.
BB: We see it in multiple ways, but typically we get integrated in with the district where they’re interviewing people for the project. We do get asked to perform a lot of those interviews because of our experience and our knowledge of how to safely perform the projects
M Bar C Construction will be exhibiting at RE+ Northeast at the Boston Convention Center, in Boston Massachusetts, at booth #935, from Feb 12 to 13; and also at Intersolar 2025 in San Diego California, at booth #1840 from February 25 to 27.