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The Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability is raising money through a crowdsourcing campaign to install solar panels at Oliver P. Lent Elementary School.

Thanks to sponsors, the is about halfway to raising the $50,000 necessary to install a 10-kilowatt solar system on the music building at the Southeast Portland school, said Andria Jacob, senior manager of clean energy programs with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. The solar panels will be part of a larger project to make the school more environmentally friendly, including building a community garden.

Oliver P. Lent Elementary will be the second site to receive solar panels through the city’s solar crowdsourcing campaign. Funds raised through the campaign have already paid for the installation of solar panels at the Southwest Community Center
in Southwest Portland. Other Portland schools and community centers could also soon receive solar panels through the Solar Forward Fund.

“We wanted to build a kind of revolving fund where we wouldn’t just install one system, but multiple systems,” she said. “We’re the first city to do it in this way.”

Portfolio 21 Investments, Portland Development Commission, SolarWorld, Umpqua Bank and Wells Fargo have all donated to the campaign, but the city is now calling on the community to raise the last half of the money needed for the Oliver P. Lent Elementary solar panels, Jacob said.

“There are plenty of people in Portland that are very supportive of solar energy,” she said. “For a much lower price point, they can help fund a solar project on a public building.”