Wind Powered High School

High School Students moving to Carbon Neutrality

By Brielle Biehn

Background

While pursuing a state of energy independence, many have turned to solutions within clean energy. Communities all over the world have been utilizing wind as a resource and harnessing the clean energy it can provide. A large source of this has been through the use of wind turbines.

Figure 1: Photo of the on-campus wind turbine at Camden Hills Regional High School after the installation in March of 2012; Penbay pilot. PenBay Pilot. (n.d.). Retrieved November 3, 2022, from https://www.penbaypilot.com/

Wind turbines are structures that use the mechanical power from wind to produce electricity (Wind Energy Technologies Office). They use large propellor blades which are designed so that when subjected to substantial enough air currents, the blades catch the wind and spin - similar to a helicopter or plane. The spinning of the blades produces kinetic energy, causing a rotor to revolve, which in turn spins a generator. This converts the kinetic energy from the wind to electrical energy which then can be used as a source of clean energy for the individuals it supports.

Figure 2: Diagram directing the reader to where certain mechanisms are on a horizontal-axis winder turbine. (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2022)

While wind turbines have been around for decades, they still have yet to become as widespread in the US as they could be. There are many success stories regarding wind farms and turbines, but some communities are still hesitant to take steps towards this clean energy solution. However, this may be changing; students at Camden Hills Regional High School in Rockport, Maine have been successfully advocating for wind energy for over 10 years now. Students and faculty work to educate their surrounding communities, friends, and families about the benefits of wind power through a student club called the Camden Windplanners, which is a play-off of their school mascot, the Camden Windjammers (a large sailing ship). In Windplanners, which meets weekly, students work towards educating themselves and others on the benefits of wind power along with advocating for clean energy solutions.

In January of 2012, after a lot of work and research, Camden Hills began building a 100-kW Northern Power Turbine (Grinnell, 2015). This project began when students learned their recently built high school consumed about 2.5 million kilowatt hours per year (Goad, 2016). To put this into perspective, the average household in Maine uses about 10,824 kilo-watt hours per year (energy usage, 2022), meaning the amount of energy used by the school could power about 230 homes. Students saw this as an opportunity and began to take action. Windplanners reached out to the University of Massachusetts and other energy experts to get advice (Jones, 2012). The students worked with the town to make an ordinance allowing them to set up a large meteorological tower to measure wind speeds and direction to figure out the best placement. All money that went into researching and building the wind turbine, which by itself costs $500,000 (Grinnell, 2015), was funded by an extensive amount of grant writing all done by students in the club (Goad, 2016).

Over the years it took to build funds, students educated the community and school board on the research they conducted (Goad, 2016). They testified at public hearings, calculated budgeting, met with advisors, politicians, and energy experts, (Goad, 2016) and held public question-and-answer sessions (Jones, 2012). In the end, not only did the school benefit greatly from Windplanners, but so did the students.

Reasons for hope

Students at Camden Hills Regional High School in the State of Maine have proven that with perseverance and determination, it is possible to accomplish really big goals. When groups of passionate people set their minds to something, even if that something is a $500,000 turbine in a small town off the coast of Maine, it can be accomplished. The wind planners proved to the community that many answers lie in good research, problem-solving skills and tenacity. The on-campus wind turbine has been standing now for just over 10 years (Grinnell, 2015). In 2021 alone, it produced 63,756 kWh (Woodruff, 2022). Because of this, the high schools' carbon dioxide contribution has been cut by about 500,000 pounds. This is equivalent to taking 55 cars off the road last year (Woodruff, 2022). For comparison, the average household produces about 15,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per year (Center for Sustainable Systems, the University of Michigan. 2021). In April of 2022, in an elementary school in Washington D.C., Vice President Kamala Harris explained that in many school districts, energy bills are the second-largest yearly expense after salaries (Kamenetz, 2022). If schools take steps towards clean energy, it will help them overall. This student-led project exemplifies to those in smaller communities how it is possible and even beneficial to coexist with wind turbines.

Figure 3: Students in Camden Hills’ Windplanners club signing the blades of the wind turbine before the final installation day

Insights and applications

If a student wanted to implement a club similar to Windplanners at their school, there are a couple of important things to note. First off, movements addressing policy change, especially those which require cultural change, take longer than expected. Projects that would be taken on by a group such as wind planners would extend over multiple classes of students. Therefore, it is important to build up undergraduates with an interest in the projects and have upper-class students pass on the essential leadership goals needed to carry on the club and its ideas (Tekola, 2022). Students should also pay attention to the state of their communities. Are they in a space that is rather accepting of innovative ideas of climate action and solutions for clean energy? Just as the Windplanners club had to do, students will most likely need to go into their communities to educate citizens about their cause in order to gain support from their towns or cities. Those interested in promoting ideas about clean energy in their school systems should understand that it is not always an easy battle.

Keith Rose, the school district Facilities Director, spoke at a press release about the school’s strides toward clean energy. She said, “I've been involved with the Windplanners since the start because this has always been a group of students who weren't afraid to take ownership of things in their power…Sometimes it does 'take a village'. It starts with a forward-thinking community and a school board supportive of sustainable student and staff efforts.” (Grinnell, 2015). Since building the wind turbine, they have also worked on other projects, including the placement of solar panels on their school's rooftop. Camden Hills’ wind power project has been successful because it has a group of passionate students who have been made to believe that their opinions and beliefs matter. It is important to note the extensive work that went into the wind turbine project and how kickstarting these ideas often takes time and hard effort. It is smart for schools to use the brilliant ideas of their students. The students who have taken part in Windplanners over the past decade have not only been a part of something that bettered their community, but they worked hard to gain skills that will be important no matter what field they choose to continue in.

Date: Fall 2022

Location: Rockport, ME, USA

Tags: Community Action