Wind power Field Trip to Hull, MA - April 19th

An educational tour of three wind turbines in Hull, MA will be hosted by ICARE.

The field trip will take place on Saturday, April 19th. The bus will depart from the rear parking lot of the middle school/high school at 7:30 am and return at 1:00 pm. Highlights of the tour will include:

Hull 1 – a 660 KW turbine commissioned in December 2001 which produced 1,597,367 kilowatt-hours in its first year of operation

Hull 2 – a 1.8 MW turbine commissioned in May 2006 which produced 4,088,000 kilowatt-hours in its first year of operation

Weir River Estuary Turbine – a residential scale turbine erected at the local nature center with support from the Light Department and the Town

The tour will be guided by Andrew Stern, a nationally-recognized municipal wind power expert. Andrew will discuss the economics of the Hull turbines, give evidence of broad public support, and update us on the status of additional, proposed turbines in that town. There will also be plenty of opportunities to ask questions.

Please make a reservation at 356-4919 or at ICAREevents@gmail.com to get a seat on the bus!

Link to Hull Wind's website

Press Release
from a recent BU energy symposium where Andrew Stern was a panelist.

Decreasing energy use, or finding a renewable source, can also help relieve this heavy burden on available utilities. Andrew Stern, president of New England Wind Power, Inc., described how the town of Hull, Mass. increasingly relies on wind power for its electricity. A wind turbine, installed in 2001 at the town’s high school, provides enough energy for about 250 homes --three percent of Hull’s electricity needs. The $780,000 turbine paid for itself in five years through saved energy costs and government incentives. A second turbine, added in 2006, sits on a landfill, and wind now provides 11 percent of Hull’s electricity. Plans to install four more offshore wind turbines will make Hull entirely reliant on wind-generated electricity in the future. “It really does excite the community,” said Stern. “Today we have a 95 percent approval rate. With a project like this, it is really the community involvement that counts.”