BY: Meredith Sell, Staff Writer
Published: Sept. 14, 2012
A network of 60 wind turbines throughout the east side of Grant County has Taylor faculty and staff working with the community in the name of research and education.
The Eastbrook Wind Energy Network, a project of the Eastbrook Alternative Energy Group (EAEG), stretches across 16 miles of varied terrain. The turbines are located at Eastbrook North Elementary in Van Buren, Eastbrook South Elementary, Eastbrook High School/Junior High School and the Matthews Community Center. Funds are being raised for two other locations in the Upland and Van Buren communities.
The 0.5 kilowatt TurboMills, produced by WindStream Technologies Incorporated, are built in units of three. Designed for city rooftops, they stand about four feet tall, within the dimensions of a satellite dish to keep from interfering with building codes.
Eastbrook High School's roof has 24 turbines in school colors of black and red. Each other location has 12.
The turbines are not budget savers. The energy they generate won't be fed into the electrical grid to be used for the everyday operations of their respective sites. Their primary purpose is education.
Indiana students can go to any school regardless of district-provided they have transportation-and schools are funded per student.
In 2010, with school funding cuts threatening Eastbrook Community Schools, LaRea Slater started brainstorming a way of attracting students to the Upland/Van Buren area. Installing wind turbines for the dual purpose of energy generation and improvement of Eastbrook science programs struck her as a way of bringing more students-and thus more funding-to Eastbrook schools.
In May 2010, Slater and Bill Wiley as co-chaired the EAEG, a group of community members with various backgrounds and expertise that has worked on the project more than 10,000 hours.
Initially, they wanted turbines the same style as Taylor's twins, but the cost-about $350,000 per turbine-turned them toward WindStream's smaller vertical-axis TurboMills. The system's costs, including the two sites not yet funded, have been estimated at $33,300.
"They weren't completely focused on the wind turbine itself, but really the impact it would have and the educational component of that," Kevin Crosby, Taylor's Coordinator of Stewardship and Sustainability, said. Crosby brainstormed with Wiley and edited grant proposals for the project.
The displays will give students a way to tangibly understand wind power.
The different locations of the turbines will provide a variety of data, allowing a greater understanding of the role of setting in wind speed and turbine effectiveness.
The turbines didn't come with a data package to translate information for display purposes. That's where Taylor came in.
The turbines have an Internet connection which allows data uploads to a designated web space. Taylor faculty and students, mainly in the Computer Department, will periodically download that information and integrate it into an overall database, using Taylor's Integration and Visualization Software.
The software will present data in understandable forms, like graphs and charts. The Eastbrook data will then be displayed next to data from Taylor's turbines and solar panels in the Systems Visualization Laboratory on Euler's ground floor.
Eastbrook data will be distributed back to Eastbrook High School for student and teacher analysis and research.
"My goal is to get them to think more carefully about green energy," said Tom Nurkkala, Taylor's data integration leader, said. "We want them to be able to integrate what's going on in their schools into the larger energy picture in Grant County."
