In developing a national solar program that is the world s leader in per capita installed capacity, the government of Switzerland caught the attention of the public by first focusing on schools. Between 1993 and 1996 a total of 155 primary, secondary, and high schools installed a combined PV capacity of 803 kilowatts, thanks to a 30-percent subsidy provided by the Swiss government. In a country of only seven million people, this was the equivalent of 5,700 American schools adopting solar, notes Thomas Nordmann, a leading Swiss solar advocate. By the end of 1998, about 1.7 megwatts of PV capacity had been installed through the national program, on more than 300 buildings, including 32 industrial and agricultural facilities and 127 homes. The Swiss also have installed grid-connected PV in vocational colleges to educate students studying in the electrical field about renewable energy.
Students do the installation themselves.
In the past six years, systems have been put into service at 24 vocational colleges with total installed power of 191 kilowatts peak.