In 1991, Peter Marbach, the director of development at Unity College in Maine, filed paperwork with the General Services Administration (GSA) in hopes of acquiring the unused solar equipment. After the college submitted a $500 fee, the GSA agreed to donate the solar panels to the school. Marbach then removed most of the seats from an old school bus belonging to the college and drove down to Virginia to pick up the panels.
(Quelle: The Monthly Newsletter on Energy-Efficient Housing, from Aspen Publishers, 2006, Vol 26, No. 1)
We “inherited” them in 1992 when a Unity College administrator named Peter Marbach drove our old school bus down to Franconia, VA, to liberate them from a General Services Administration warehouse under the government surplus donations program. They had been in storage since they were removed during the administration of President Reagan in 1986.
We placed 16 of them on our cafeteria roof in 1992, and used them to provide hot water for 12 years. The remainder was placed in storage, although one or two have occasionally been used for student experimentation. And of course, students have always been interested in and concerned about the system.
We would like to retire these panels from active use and instead preserve them as historical artifacts.
(Quelle: Webiste Unity College, Mick Womersley, 2004)