Maple Ridge Wind Farm
Okay, I know this isn’t in New England, but it is nearby and really AWESOME!
The winds off Lake Ontario blow across the Tug Hill Plateau in Lewis County New York making this an ideal place for a wind farm. With 195 (1.65 MW) turbines, enough to provide power for 125,000 homes, Maple Ridge is the biggest wind farm east of the Mississippi. The project was complete and operational in 2006.
The $380 million project created many jobs in this rural part of New York. Also, the lease payments for the land on which the towers sit provide struggling farmers extra income to supplement their traditional income from dairy and maple syrup production. Another benefit of the project was construction of new and upgraded roads.
Check out these links that explain the details and benefits of this project:
Turning to the Wind
Last August about 100 residents of an island off Maine gathered at their pristine little port to watch the arrival of three giants.
From shore, the islanders could see their enormous white arms, resembling a surfaced submarine or the bony remnants of a prehistoric beast, lying on the deck of an approaching barge.
The onlookers on Vinalhaven were welcoming the massive blades of three wind turbines, part of a community-based power project guided by Harvard Business School Professor George Baker as part of an effort to slash the islanders’ high electricity costs.
“The islands pay about three times the national average for electricity, and the wind blows all the time,” said Baker, who is on leave from Harvard Business School to help complete the project. “The question was, ‘Can’t we generate electricity with wind?’”
The answer has been a resounding “yes.”
Source: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/02/turning-to-the-wind/ – Harvard Gazette, accessed February 18, 2010
Beneath Hull's Wind Turbine
If I could find the ‘insert/upload photo’ tool, I’d like to post a few photos of the sun setting over Boston. Photo location: Pemberton Point, underneath the wind turbine.
MWRA twin turbines – Boston Harbor
Deer Island
These are the first two, as many as three additional turbines may be added at Deer Island.
Turkey Hill
Here is the wind turbine in Hull as seen from the top of the hill at Turkey Hill looking north. In case you’ve never been, visit the Turkey Hill Reservation – a property of the Trustees of Reservations. It really fun to drive over to Hull and see the turbine close up as you’re crossing the causeway.
Green Energy: Wind Turbine Installations
Follow these links for a local article from the Providence Journal ( New England Institute, Warwick )
and Shalom Housing, Warwick. Both of these projects are 100kW turbines.
• Turbine manufacturer: Northern Power Systems
• Height: 40 meters (131 feet)
• Rotor diameter: 21 meters (69 feet)
• Electricity generated: Approximately 170 MWh/year
• Greenhouse gas emissions offset: 133 tons/year (266,000 pounds/year)
• Power production minimum wind speed: 3 meters/second (7 miles per hour)
• 50 KW power production wind speed: 8.5 m/s (19 mph)
• 100 KW power production wind speed: 15.2 m/s (34 mph)
Here is the Northwind 100KW in Medford side-by-side with the Elecon 600KW turbine in Newburyport.
A new turbine in Pittsfield
Have you seen it yet? It’s out near the Mass Pike (between exit 2 and 3), we stopped by to find it on our way back from NY in October– it was running. And it was snowy.
Green Initiatives – overview
This blog entry is a placeholder for the future, to organize multiple entries in the topic of green energy, sustainable designs, clean energy, energy assessment, energy monitoring, smart grid utilities, and other topics! There will also be topics on personal energy conservation.
The couple of entries, to date:
