Fairfield - The folks at Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield unveiled their new Solar Heating and Cooling Lab Wednesday afternoon.

The lab will be used primarily to prepare trainers from across the region Those trainers will will then teach students who will go on to careers as solar energy installers.

The lab has been in development for more than a year. The building is already an example of how solar energy can be used. More than 300 tubes on the roof of the building currently harness solar energy. "Those 360 glass tubes are on the roof you'll see them when you go outside," Dana Doran, Director of Energy programs at KVCC told the crowd. "And those are putting heat into these 2 large tanks behind me. Those tanks are supplying heat for the building in the winter time. And those tanks are supplying heat for a chiller we bought from a company in Germany that supplies air conditioning."

The new lab was paid for, in part, with federal money from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

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