DANVILLE — Workers were up with the sun Friday as they started work affixing a solar-array system to the side of Danville High School.

The system is the most visible centerpiece of the new GLOBAL House education initiative, approved by school officials last year and starting when school begins Aug. 23.

“There aren’t too many schools that have something like this,” said Rowdy Fatheree, DHS assistant principal and head of GLOBAL.

“It ties in perfectly to the classroom and what we’re going to be doing,” he said. “We know if students can see the relevance in learning they’ll be more actively engaged.”

The six-panel array will produce enough power to save the school a few bucks a year, but more important, students can access historical information and monitor the real-time energy-collection process remotely via the Internet.

“It monitors daily how much energy the panels are taking in,” he said.

Illiana Power of Terre Haute, Ind., is spearheading the solar project and helped the district obtain a 90 percent funding grant, which includes curriculum. Anderson Electric is assisting Illiana with the installation. The local chapter of Altrusa International provided a gift to purchase additional staff-training materials.

“They can teach it to any class that has Internet access,” said Angela Price, a certified installer with Illiana. “They can go back and look at historical information for 15 years. They can use this system at any of its schools.”

The energy produced is fed back into the general electrical grid, she said, and enough of it is produced in a year to provide 25 homes electricity for one day or run a television for 9,300 hours. The system could last for 40 years, she added.

“It will probably save them on their utility bill about $150 a year,” she said, adding it will also offset carbon emission equal to 252 propane-fueled cookouts.

The panels will be placed just north of the clock tower entrance, on the south-facing wall that leads to a garage and the band room.

Workers had difficulties in their first installation attempt Friday and had to stop to obtain a lift that wouldn’t lean from the garages entrance’s uneven entrance. They planned to return this week to finish the work.

Price said the school project is Illiana’s fourth and the company has hopes to expand the program as a way to groom the needed alternative-energy workforce for the future.

“A lot of the communities we go to,” she said, “they’re not familiar with renewable energy or how it works. We’re looking for employees that have some basic knowledge, which is hard to find right now.”

The $10,000 grant application was made through the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation as part of the Illinois Energy Schools program.

Rachel Brown, teacher-leader of GLOBAL, said the options for classroom incorporation are almost unlimited as the new “house” develops a focus on energy-related careers.

The three class levels will make a concentric circle around energy, teaching local issues in the first quarter and then expanding it out each quarter to eventually include energy issues facing the at-large world.

“As a math teacher, now I can use energy-specific word problems, for example,” she said. “We’re trying to make it mean something to students and we’re trying to relate that to all of the classes. It’s going to be very exciting.”

Even a tragedy like the Gulf of Mexico oil spill can be incorporated on the “fly,” making it a part of regular discussion in every classroom.

“Unfortunately, the Gulf spill is a perfect example,” she said. “There are a variety of topics students and teachers will be able to draw from and use it to tie it all together. We’re searching for that ‘a-ha moment’ where students see the direct value of what they’ve learned.”

GLOBAL students will kick off the year with a “Sunfest” DHS leaders are still planning.