Aug. 19--Early next month, when the students of Avon Old Farms School return for their fall semester, an image of a new Connecticut will greet them as they arrive on campus.

There, covering almost the entire south roof of the Jennings Fairchild hockey rink, students will see a $1.4 million array of solar panels -- one of the largest on any school in New England -- that two renewable-energy firms built at Old Farms. The school estimates that the project will save about $250,000 a year in electrical bills and provide about 75 percent of the school's needs on its main campus.

But Avon Old Farms is just the beginning. From the grounds of a working dairy farm in Torrington, where an innovative wind turbine is going up this fall, to a new mixed-use manufacturing and retail building in Ashford, which will be powered by photovoltaic solar panels, the skyscape of Connecticut is rapidly being altered by the rush toward renewable energy.

These Connecticut green energy projects speak to the optimism of the administration of Barack Obama, who promised while running for president last year to invest $150 billion over 10 years in renewable energy and energy-efficient growth, producing more than 5 million new "green collar" jobs nationwide.

Perhaps more significant, the Avon, Torrington and Ashford projects were built by Connecticut-based companies and thus concentrated the promised benefits of the green-collar revolution here in the state.

Connecticut has already received more than $120 million in the first round of federal stimulus money distributed this year, which is expected to be an additional catalyst in the sector. On Tuesday, Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced that Connecticut has formed a consortium with seven other Northeast states to apply for an additional $3.9 million in stimulus funds to identify opportunities for green jobs, establish training programs and create a website with a "green job bank" for interested workers.

"Connecticut has a number of things going for it that has placed us ahead of other states in renewable energy," said Kim Stevenson, the manager of new technologies for the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, which was created in 2000 to invest in clean energy projects, funded by a surcharge on the state's electric ratepayers.

"We have an educated workforce, a strong high-tech industry, and have spent the last eight years putting in place government programs that fund innovation in industry," Stevenson said.