Earth’s Future Integrating solar energy and climate research into science education Alan K. Betts 1 , James Hamilton 2 , Sam Ligon 2 , and Ann Marie Mahar 2 1 Atmospheric Research, Pittsford, Vermont, USA, 2 Rutland High School, Rutland, Vermont, USA Abstract This paper analyzes multi-year records of solar flux and climate data from two solar power sites in Vermont. We show the inter-annual differences of temperature, wind, panel solar flux, electrical power production, and cloud cover. Power production has a linear relation to a dimensionless measure of the transmission of sunlight through the cloud field. The difference between panel and air temperatures reaches 24 ∘ C with high solar flux and low wind speed. High panel temperatures that occur in summer with low wind speeds and clear skies can reduce power production by as much as 13%. The intercom- parison of two sites 63 km apart shows that while temperature is highly correlated on daily (R 2 =0.98) and hourly (R 2 =0.94) timescales, the correlation of panel solar flux drops markedly from daily (R 2 =0.86) to hourly (R 2 =0.63) timescales. Minimum temperatures change little with cloud cover, but the diurnal temperature range shows a nearly linear increase with falling cloud cover to 16 ∘ C under nearly clear skies, similar to results from the Canadian Prairies. The availability of these new solar and climate datasets allows local student groups, a Rutland High School team here, to explore the coupled relationships between climate, clouds, and renewable power production. As our society makes major changes in our energy infrastructure in response to climate change, it is important that we accelerate the technical education of high school students using real-world data. 1. Introduction Vermont has an ambitious comprehensive energy plan with the goal of meeting 90% of the state’s energy needs through renewable resources by 2050 [Vermont Comprehensive Energy Plan, 2015]. Part of this is a tran- sition to a distributed renewable energy power system based on solar power and wind farms. In addition, the installed cost of solar power has fallen more than 60% in the past 6 years. As a result, Vermont has seen rapid deployment of solar power projects ranging in scale from small arrays of a few kilowatts (kW) of peak power for individual households, community-shared arrays of a few hundred kilowatts, and much larger megawatt arrays. Since 2011, more than 100 MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) electric generation has been added in the state, and installations proposed for 2016 are increasing in size. At the same time, Green Mountain Power (GMP), the largest electrical utility in Vermont, is moving forward with integrating ever-increasing solar power into a smart grid with distributed electrical storage. On a global scale, non-governmental organi- zations [e.g., Solar Electric Light Fund, 2015] are developing local solar micro-grids that can provide essential power to small communities for lights, communications, irrigation, clinics, and schools, where electrical power from a central grid is unavailable. In coming decades, it is likely that rising sea level, and the ris- ing threat of the collapse of global ecosystems [Barnosky et al., 2012] due to direct human intervention and ongoing climate change driven by a fossil-fuel economy, will drive a rapid global shift to renewables despite powerful resistance from political, economic and financial interests. Vermont has accepted the need for this shift, in part because its own iconic ecosystem is threatened [ANR, 2015], and the State has become a leader in the transition towards a renewable energy system. Recently, Rutland Vermont achieved its goal of becoming the city with the most solar power per capita in New England [Green Mountain Power, 2015]. This is the context for our analysis of solar power and climate by a Rutland High School team. Solar arrays measure electrical power production, but some arrays also monitor the incoming solar flux and other mete- orological parameters, such as temperature and wind speed. These data are transformative as we can now document across the landscape how the solar flux drives maximum temperature and the diurnal range of temperature and infer the role of clouds in reducing the shortwave heating of the surface as well as electrical power production. At the same time, these data, coupled with panel temperature and wind data, elegantly RESEARCH ARTICLE 10.1002/2015EF000315 Key Points: • Data from solar power arrays are a new resource • Solar flux data are useful for cloud, power, and climate analyses • Solar data provide local research information for science education Corresponding author: Alan K. Betts, akbetts@aol.com Citation: Betts, A. K., J. Hamilton, S. Ligon, and A. M. Mahar (2016), Integrating solar energy and climate research into science education, Earth’s Future, 4 2 – 13, doi:10.1002/2015EF000315. Received 6 AUG 2015 Accepted 4 DEC 2015 Accepted article online 6 JAN 2016 Published online 29 JAN 2016 © 2016 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distri- bution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifica- tions or adaptations are made. BETTS ET AL. INTEGRATING SOLAR ENERGY AND CLIMATE RESEARCH 2