According to the fourth edition of the “Brighter Future” report, released last week by the clean energy nonprofit Generation180, the number of U.S. schools using solar power has more than doubled in the last seven years, reaching roughly 8,400 by the end of 2021.Since 2015, American schools’ total solar energy capacity has nearly tripled to 1,644 megawatts — enough to meet the electricity use of all the households in a city the size of Boston, Denver, or Washington, D.C.At the front of the pack is California; the Golden State has both the greatest number of solar schools and the most solar capacity.Developers benefit because the agreements allow them to take advantage of federal tax credits and provide a stable source of income.One student interviewed for the Generation180 report, Kimberly, said the program “opened my eyes and introduced me to careers I didn’t know existed.”Despite schools’ progress, Generation180 emphasizes that there’s still work to do, as some 90 percent of U.S. schools still lack solar panels.“We still have a long way to go to reach the goal of 100% clean energy,” the report says, “and the speed and scale of the climate crisis calls for us to respond faster than ever.” According to the organization’s estimates, shifting all of the United States’ K-12 schools to 100 percent solar power would eliminate 60 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually — roughly equivalent to the yearly climate pollution of 16 coal-fired power plants."