UMPI receives first piece of wind turbine

Photo courtesy of UMPI
    The first piece of the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s wind turbine — the middle section of 65-meter turbine tower — arrived on campus on Wednesday, Feb. 25. The turbine tower sections are being shipped by truck from the Midwest. Later this spring, the 20-ton nacelle [which houses the turbine’s gearbox and generator and turbine blades measuring 47 meters in diameter are expected to arrive.
The hope is to begin erecting the turbine in early April and have it ready to produce electricity by the end of April. The University signed an agreement last fall with Lumus Construction to install the 600 kW turbine, which is expected to produce about one million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year and save the institution more than $100,000 annually in electricity charges. Once fully operational, the turbine is expected to save an estimated 572 tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere each year. This project establishes UMPI as the first university in the state of Maine and one of only a handful in New England to install a mid-size wind turbine on its campus. For more information about this project, please visit www.umpi.edu/wind.