LaurenHicks

At the end of this school year, Marian will be taking its next step into becoming a more sustainable school: installing solar panels.

In 2024, then senior Kenadie Rudloff came to President Michele Ernst with a proposal about installing solar panels on the roof, which sparked from a meeting within the Sustainability Board. Rudloff, along with another 2024 graduate, Sydney Auman, were in charge of the club at that time.

“Every once in a while, we would have meetings where we came up with ideas to make Marian more sustainable,” Rudloff said. “One of the ideas that Sydney and I were looking into was renewable energy. We decided that, as a club, this isn’t something that we could attain but something that could better the school.”

“As an ex-corporate girl who has written my fair share of proposals,” Ernst said. “Bringing me one was a bold move and she did a really great job on it.”

“Sitting with the president was very nerve-racking,” Rudloff said. “Especially with the topic being something that I poured so much passion, time and effort into.”

Sadly, it was not in the cards for Marian’s yearly budget in 2024.

“We really liked the idea, but we didn’t have the budget to do it at the time,” Ernst said.

However, things took a turn for the better when Mrs. Jane Dineen, the Vice President of Finance in the Business Office, began to calculate how much the installation would cost.

“I had a solar panel company actually reach out to me last fall, and I was aware of Kenadie’s proposal, so I asked Dr. Sullivan for it, thinking that there could be data I could use,” Dineen said. “I started working with this company and getting more and more interested. We realized that this could happen but we needed to figure out how to cover capital costs.”

After looking at many different grants, Marian applied for one with the Lozier Foundation and will be receiving $150,000 from them.

“I quoted [Kenadie] in our grant application, which really resonated with the Lozier board,” Dineen said. “I re-ran her numbers and her work was very good.”

The Lozier Foundation noted that they liked the fact that this was a student-initiated project.

However, the school is still hoping to raise more money for this project. “We’re still in need,” Dineen said. “We still want to raise another $100,000, and then Lozier will match that.”

Additionally, the school is utilizing tax credits and city grants.

“For a short period of time, the state is offering tax credits, resulting in a 30% reduction in the cost to Marian,” Ernst said. These tax credits, which would’ve expired in June, gave the school an approach to getting this project started.

Typically, Marian wouldn’t qualify for grants, as it is a private school. Fortunately, this project is sustainability-focused, and is able to recieve additional funding.

The positive impacts of this new installment don’t just end at cost saving for the school.

These new solar panels will reduce the school’s current energy consumption by 15%, and save more than 239,000 pounds of coal annually.

“You think of caring for God’s creation, caring for the earth, and even though we are only saving 15% of our current usage, it’s a good start. That 15% is a whole trainload of coal. This renewable energy is just scratching the surface, but it’s a really nice start,” Dineen said.

“As a Catholic community, we obviously have a calling to care for the earth, not only as people but as Catholics,” Rudloff said. “Instilling that into students is such an important part of a Catholic education and creating such well-rounded women.”

“The ability for students to get engaged in what we’re doing, from a sustainability perspective, certainly creates opportunities in the classroom,” Ernst said.

“We’re planning on having meters available with easy access for our students,” Dineen said. “You would be able to see electricity that these panels are producing in real time.”

Honors Physics II students just spent the last few weeks learning about renewable energy sources. Seniors Brooklyn Salzbrenner, Natalie Pham and Reese Eggers were excited to hear about the new additions to the building.

“This energy source is so important because it doesn’t emit any harmful chemicals or gases,” Pham said. “Solar panels work to produce energy by converting the sun’s energy from [direct current] to [alternating current] which allows household items to use the sun’s energy.”

“They are actually the fastest-growing energy source and the sun can provide enough energy in 90 minutes to power the entire world with solar panels,” Salzbrenner said.

All three seniors said they agreed that this new installation will help Marian become more sustainable.

“I am a strong believer that change begins with us,” Eggers said. “If we, as consumers, cannot commit to actively working to make a change, how can we expect corporations to do so?”

“We’ll have this started before the end of our fiscal year in May, hopefully having it installed right after school ends,” Dineen said.

“I’m ecstatic!” Rudloff said. “It was something that I thought would even be further away than two years post-graduation. The fact that it is being enacted is great.”

There were many things to figure out when it came to the installation of solar panels on the roof. 

“We had to think about things like if the roof could bear the weight or optically would it look ugly? We are fortunate [that on] our roof … it is going to be barely noticeable,” Dineen said.

“Mrs. Dineen was the one who was really all in on this in the very beginning. She did a really nice job of championing this, pushing it forward and making converts out of all the rest of us,” Ernst said.

Dineen said she would like to double the capacity of these solar panels in a few years, if all goes well.

“This is a three-step project in my mind,” Dineen said. “I would love to see us cover our entire roof system, then phase three is developing some sort of solar farm on our land.”

Ernst said she didn’t want this new initiative to end with Marian.

“Let’s lead by example. We’ll help you, give us a call. Give [Dineen] a call. She’ll tell you how to get it done,” Ernst said.

“Marian is a leader in almost every aspect of education, sports, academics, whatever it is, we have always been on the forefront of girls’ and women’s experiences within Omaha,” Rudloff said. “Sustainability is the one thing that we were a little bit behind on, especially when compared to other schools. By making this push, we are putting ourselves ahead in yet another way. We are also just doing what’s right.”