Monday, March 5, 2012

J-Term Wind Turbine Experience

During a two week internship opportunity in January, I interned at company called Performance Services. They focus on guaranteed energy savings. In order to accomplish these savings, they generally redesign the heating ventilation and air conditioning systems of k-12, healthcare, and higher education buildings. However, another aspect they look at is the viable sources of alternative energy that can complement the energy savings of their current project. During my experience with them, I was able to actually visit a site where they were installing wind turbine for a high school. I learned many interesting things such as: the higher up a turbine is placed the faster the winds will be that it will experience, many people find wind turbines unsightly and the blades of the turbine can cast a very irritating flickering shadow there are differing regulations, depending on state laws, that determine how close a turbine may be to any building or how tall it may be; when a building is not using all of the output of a privately owned turbine, the extra power generated can often be sold back to an electrical company; most turbines are made outside the United States.

From this I learned that a Turbine near Covenant Christian High School is not possible with the current property that Covenant owns. (Covenant would have to purchase property at a more isolated location). However if this were not a problem, then Covenant could very likely own and make a profit and save money with a wind turbine.

Joe Igleski,

Covenant Christian, Junior

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