Why would British Gas donate £15 million to schools for solar energy?

A £15 million donation should never be sneezed at, especially when it relates to renewable energy, however many may find the news that British Gas has started a £15 million project to supply 1,100 schools with free solar systems worth between £20,000 and £40,000 pounds each, curious. Curious because there is actually no catch involved and the scheme looks to have been carefully thought out.

Giving away £15 million in solar energy installations is actually a very smart move by the energy provider and significantly cheaper than an advertising campaign to promote its initial more public entry into the solar installation market. Especially so when the previous Labour government which announced the solar pay-back or feed-in tariff system on April 1st, this year did nothing to promote its adoption.

British Gas is going the ‘viral’ marketing route to kick-start a major drive to become a leader solar energy installer in the UK and is tapping into school children to spread the word that solar energy is the next must have home item.

Not only will schools now be able to see how solar energy works but will also be able to track their school system performance against others and share tips and advice via a specially designed website.

British Gas is also to run a schools competition for the next phase of the solar system roll-out, creating even greater awareness amongst countless schools about their companies offering, even without a system having been installed.

Very soon thousands and tens of thousands of school children will be very aware of what solar energy can do and importantly what it saves and how it works would permeate to parents who would quickly become well versed about solar, something that government has failed to do.

The potential impact, awareness and customer enquiries, British Gas could generate from this £15 million donation is huge.

But don’t just take my word for it. British Gas also thinks the same way and noted in their press announcement that ‘based on a formula created by the University of Bath's Centre for Research in Education and the Environment to measure the impact that teachers can have beyond the classroom, up to 1.8 million parents and family members could learn about renewable energy as a result of the initiative.

The question now is what are the other energy suppliers going to do?