Is your school/college green?

A report, NYT I think, says Quinnipiac University has installed an array of wind turbines that looks like outdoor art while it produces energy for the campus. The area where it’s installed is a designated park – a “wind garden” – for students. And they aren’t likely to miss the lesson here.

What is remarkable in this installation is that the windmills are free of propellers and their annoying “whoosh”. The trunks are encircled by a vertically aligned system that spins slowly in total silence.

My reading about these “windspires” tells me this:
Together, the 25 turbines can generate about 32,000 kilowatt hours a year — roughly the equivalent of lighting one floor of the campus’s five-level 2,000-car parking garage.
The advantage of vertical airfoils is that they capture wind from any direction, according to Mariah Power, the Nevada company that manufactures the Windspires. This is the first time that the product has been used to artful effect.

There are misgivings. The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund has noted that placing the posts so closely together could cause airflow from one turbine to interfere with that of the next. Also, the wind stream is better only at 50 feet or more.

No one questions that it will perform. It’s just that it may not be to the levels expected.
But right now they are spinning beautifully and it is quiet around there in the park.
And it’s a big boost for Quinnipiac that got a D-minus for its efforts to go green.

Have you been to the campus? May be you should. It’s a large one – one estimate says it’s a 250 acre campus. And the view is pretty impressive, they say, from the wind garden. And I can imagine students loving to sit on top of that wind-hill.

Read More Info:
Is your school/college green?