The Environmental Protection Agency presented Madison College with the Green Power Leadership Award for Direct Project Engagement.

            The EPA detailed that the award was given to the college for “Completing construction of the largest rooftop solar photovoltaic system in the State of Wisconsin in 2019. Madison Area Technical College contributed more than 80 percent of the capital to develop the 1.85 MW solar project, which was also designed as an educational tool.”

            The rooftop photovoltaic system was designed to be able to be accessed by students as a learning experience, allowing them to monitor data to learn about the process of creating electricity through the system, monitoring for performance, and detecting signs of degradation or maintenance needs.

            Achieving these accomplishments, along with a broad communications campaign which used videos, media coverage, tours of the project, scholarly manuscripts and how-to guides to help others plan similar projects, resulted in Madison College being one of six institutions to receive the award for the year of 2020.