Unity — Unity College is giving one of the solar panels that once sat atop the White House to the people of China. The gift, to Himin Solar Energy Group, the largest manufacturer of solar hot water heaters in the world, will be displayed at the Solar Science and Technology Museum in Dezhou, within Himin's 800-acre "China Solar Valley" manufacturing complex.

A second panel is to be donated to the Solar Energy Industry Association of America.

Huang Ming, chairman of Himin Solar Energy Group, is expected to be present to accept the gift at a ceremony Thursday, Aug. 5, at the Unity Centre for the Performing Arts, as will a representative of SEIA. But to the dismay of some at Unity College, state and federal politicians may be in short supply.

Mark Tardif of Unity College rattled off a list of politicians invited by the school, most of whom had either declined to attend or had yet to respond. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree had passed, Tardif said; Rep. Michael Michaud hadn't answered yet, ditto U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Gubernatorial candidate Paul LePage declined immediately, and Libby Mitchell had yet to respond. Gov. John E. Baldacci said no.

"Here is the largest solar energy company in Asia and maybe the world; their CEO is visiting Unity, Maine, and we're not getting responses from the politicians who are charged with bringing businesses to Maine," Tardif said. "You would think the people involved with economic development would be flocking to this, but they're not."

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter had 32 solar panels installed on the West Wing of the White House as a symbolic introduction of the administration's goal of getting 20 percent of the nation's energy from renewable sources by the year 2000.

The panels were not the photovoltaic variety used to create electricity, but flat plate solar collectors, which heat water by circulating it though a series of fins, painted black to absorb the heat of the sun's rays. Though the vintage panels are no longer state of the art, flat plate collectors are still commonly used, including a two-panel array atop Unity House, the residence of the college president, built in 2008 as a prototype for energy-efficient mass produced housing.

The panels on Unity House were fabricated by Heliodyne Solar Hot Water of Richmond, Calif.

The White House panels were removed in 1986 during routine roof repairs and President Ronald Reagan reportedly deemed them too expensive to reinstall. Skeptics have viewed the decision as reflective of a policy shift in the U.S. government in the 1980s. President George W. Bush in 2002 had three solar systems, one photovoltaic and two solar hot water heaters, installed on the White House grounds.

Unity College got the Carter solar panels in 1991 after then-Development Director Peter Marbach read an article about the panels languishing in a warehouse in Virginia and saw the symbolic value for a small school aspiring to be known as "America's Environmental College."

Sixteen of the panels were refurbished and installed on the roof of the school cafeteria, where, according to Unity Sustainability Coordinator Jesse Pyles, they were used to preheat water for washing dishes. In 2005, they were decommissioned but remained in place. Sources at the college say they will be removed in the near future.

At least one of the remaining panels may have been dismantled for educational purposes. Three have been donated — to the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, the Smithsonian Institution and NRG Systems, a wind-energy company headquartered in Vermont.

One panel was reportedly loaned to Google and recently returned; another is on loan to a museum in Canada. A third panel has been restored and is currently on display at the Unity Centre for the Performing Arts. Constantine said it remains to be determined which panel will go to China, though he said it is likely the one on loan in Canada would be shipped directly to China.

The rest of the panels are in storage at Unity College in the old Unity Town House, a building described by a college maintenance worker as "a big white building. You can't miss it. It's the only one of its kind."

In recent years, projections of Maine's economic future hinging on alternative energy production have become a common refrain, generally focusing on wind energy. And while the symbolic gift to China could be seen as sending the dream overseas, Constantine said the gift to Himin could bring benefits to the state in the form of future partnerships between Chinese solar manufacturers and Maine-based distributors and installers.

"Realistically, to address climate change, the economic cost and the damage to the world, it has to be seen as a global issue," he said, "And if China is doing some work and is willing to recognize the history of the industry, I think that's an appropriate place for it [the solar panel]."