Headlines
Kenston begins wind-turbine construction
By SUE HOFFMAN
After a year and a half of research and fund-raising, the Kenston School District has begun construction of a wind turbine.
The school board recently signed a contract with the Renaissance Group to provide design services for the turbine at a cost of $80,000. Last week, the company evaluated soil conditions at the construction site near the back entrance to the stadium.
School Superintendent Robert A. Lee said the 500-kilowatt wind turbine will save the school district $80,000 to $100,000 a year in electric costs. The project is expected to cost $700,000 to $800,000, and should be completed by October, he said.
So far, the district has received $500,000 in aid, including an Ohio grant of $300,000 through Cleveland State University, $150,000 from the Ohio Department of Development and $50,000 from the Lake-Geauga branch of the Cleveland Foundation. "We're still working on the funding," Dr. Lee said, and additional money might be forthcoming once the project is under way.
"There needs to be some local matching money." He said the district had budgeted some of its bond-issue funds to help with the project.
Bidding for the project is scheduled for approval at the May 19 school board meeting, with bid opening in June, Dr. Lee said. There will be separate bids for different parts of the project, including the foundation, pole and generator.
"The higher we can go up on the pole, the more wind we can get," Dr. Lee said. A cost-benefit analysis will determine the cost-efficiency of bringing in a special crane to give the turbine greater height, he said.
"There are so many different steps, and one of the challenges will be the delivery of the blades, which are projected to be 100 feet long," Dr. Lee said. "The wind turbine works best at a constant 15 mph wind." An adjustment of the direction of the blades is required in winds above and below that speed, he said.
The district will be building a reconditioned turbine, rather than a new one, he said. "A brand new turbine would take one or two years to construct."
While the school district will need to go through competitive bidding, it has been listed as a collaborative test site for a new hydraulic system in a proposal for Parker Hannifin Corp. by LNE Group, a government relations firm. Parker Hannifin and its partners were awarded a $1 million grant through Ohio's Third Frontier initiative to commercialize the hydrostatic-wind-turbine-drive-train system it developed. The system uses the company's hydraulic components to improve the overall energy-generating capacity and reliability of wind turbines over their service life, according to LNE Group officials.
The drive-train system "uses hydraulics in lieu of a gear box," said Jason Smith, vice president of LNE Group. "Gear boxes are prone to failure," he said, which leads to high maintenance costs.
"Parker proposes using a hydraulic transmission as a way of connecting the rotor to the generator," according to the abstract submitted by LNE Group. "The technology eliminates the gear box and improves the productivity of the turbine over its service life."
The Kenston School District was one of two sites that completed a year-long wind-study program through Green Energy Ohio, a not-for-profit organization managing the Ohio Anemometer Loan Program. Green Energy Ohio, which worked with the Ohio Department of Development to stimulate development of the state's wind resources, placed several anemometers on the tower for radio station WKHR on top of Kenston Middle School last summer. Iten Industries, a small plastics manufacturer in Ashtabula County, was the other test site.
The Kenston School Board approved a contract in the fall of 2006 to serve as a site sponsor for a wind study. Dr. Lee then had the radio tower analyzed to assure that it would support instrumentation.
The district incurred no cost for the wind study, Dr. Lee said. Students in Kenston High School's Envirothon group helped monitor the instruments during the study.
Dr. Lee said his goal has been to make the new high school, which opened in August 2006, a green building. He said he thought of the potential for using wind power when visiting the site prior to construction. "It seemed it was windy all the time, and I thought of it every time we were on site," he said.
He contacted the Ohio Department of Development after reading about the wind-study grant program. After the department inspected the site, Kenston officials were referred to Green Energy Ohio for the study.
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