“Ultimately the only thing you’ll see is this nine-foot-round footprint of the monopole,” says Margo Murphy. Well- that’s not exactly all a future visitor to Camden Hills Regional High School will see. To be clear, there’s also the 156-foot tall wind turbine atop that concrete footprint. But that’s assumed to be common knowledge at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Windplanners, the latest benchmark in an eight-year journey for the student group at Camden Hills Regional High School (CHRHS). The Windplanners began as a humble handful of students with a grand goal: to raise enough capital for their own wind turbine, to be installed at CHRHS with the intention of cutting down on energy use and resource consumption at the school. After reviewing many options and engaging in talks with the community and their neighbors, the group settled on the Northwind 100, an American-made turbine manufactured in Vermont, which has been site-tested at schools, suburban sites, and luxury hotels with excellent results.
At two o’ clock on Friday January 13, a throng of teenagers, faculty and camera-wielding adults march through the thin layer of snow to the site where the tower will be placed. It is about 300 feet from the rear of the school, sited near the sports fields. Windplanners carried shovels, rakes, pitchforks—any groundbreaking accoutrement seemed fair game. After a few words from their peers, these kids practically dove into their work, excitedly tossing shovelfuls of snow and dirt aside. Errant pitches were frequent; at least one member of the press left the event with boots full of gravel.
After the ceremony, Murphy led a group back to a classroom in the school. “I wanted to show you this!” says Murphy excitedly. “This is a Northwind tower down at a garden center down in Hyannis.” She pulls out a copy of a Google maps image from a binder brimming with papers on the Windplanners project. “Her tower is right here,” Murphy points at the grainy image of white tower tucked in amongst a rather dense suburban neighborhood. “So it’s literally 100 feet from where all these people are living. There have been no complaints. And ours is the same exact one. There’s a nature center in central Massachusetts where one woman lives about 75 feet from one of these. The Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa has people sleeping at distances about the same that ours will be from the school.”
The research and careful selection of the turbine has been worthwhile. Reservations from the community are a part of most wind power projects, and this one is no exception. According to Elliott Grigo, a junior at CHRHS and a Windplanner, “There’s just been a few people who have challenged us. It’s just another milestone for us. We’ve gone through a lot, we’ve done a lot of interviews, we’ve done a lot of architectural work, electrical work, etc. It’s just another obstacle. For the most part we’ve had a lot of support.” Also, technology has changed since the early days of wind power, allowing for safer and quieter operation of turbines. The direct-drive technology utilized by Northern Power Company, manufacturer of the Northwind 100, forgoes the noisy moving parts in many early models of turbines. At 40 meters, the noise level is 50 dB, which is strikingly quiet—about the volume of a home refrigerator or a “quiet at-home conversation,” leading one journalist present to note playfully “so”¦ complaining about the wind turbine would actually be louder than the wind turbine itself?”
Though the students’ composure and maturity while answering questions belies their years, they reveal their youth as they pack around the groundbreaking site—they are all smiling broadly, joking and laughing. The anticipation in the air makes others see that these students have the unwavering belief that they are doing something good. “And you could say ‘What if we don’t make all our money back?’ but, these kids raised all this money.” Says Murphy. “It’s not costing anybody who didn’t want to contribute a penny, and it is going to save $15,000 to $18,000 a year to the taxpayers.” That figure is based on the energy savings the school expects to see from the use of the turbine. About 10 percent of the money raised came from a government grant—the rest being realized from private donors and foundations. In essence, the Windplanners are really channeling a private gift back into the community.