IDEAL Academy Public Charter School will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house this weekend to celebrate a collaboration with a District startup that will not only feed solar and micro-grid technology into the school, but also benefit the larger community.
The event runs Saturday from noon to 2 p.m. and will be held at the school, which is located on the 6300 block of N. Capital St. NW. Ward 4 Councilmember Brandon Todd is expected to speak.
The open house and ceremony come two months after the school and BDG Renewable Energy Development signed a memorandum of understanding in which the school agreed to house the technology for the Lamond Riggs area grid.
BDG, according to a news release from the company, will design, pay for and erect a “behind-the-meter solution” at the school that, it said, will save the school thousands of dollars in energy costs.
Outside of the school, the partnership aims to save customers money through community energy cooperatives, to grow alternative and renewable energy jobs and businesses, to boost community energy security, as well as maintain power and improve services for residents during widespread power outages. All of this would go on while beefing up the grid’s reliability and resiliency.