On Friday, Park Rapids High School students and teachers plan to add a new, renewable energy source to the school’s grid-connected distribution system: a wind generator, thanks to help from Minnesota Power.

The generator sits atop a 100-foot tower and the Jacobs turbine can produce up to 20 kilowatts. Based on local average wind speeds onsite of about 11 miles per hour, its estimated annual output is 25,700 kilowatt-hours.

“In addition to anticipated energy savings, the project helps teachers incorporate information about renewable energy into their curricula, touching on subjects from physics, engineer­ing and chemistry to biology, ecology and meteorology,” said Conservation Improvement Program (CIP) Specialist Dean Talbott. The project also helps prompt classroom discussion on generation sources – from wind, coal and hydro to natural gas, biofuels and nuclear.

Representing MP at the school’s recent celebration of the wind project tower “tip up” were Customer Service Representative Jolynn Nilson, Customer Information Representative Jeneen Klein and Chris Reed of Reed Energy, a contract firm that works closely with MP on renewable energy projects. Other MP person­nel assisting in the project are Engineer Senior Frank Kornbaum and Regional Account Manager Mary Bindewald.

MP funded similar projects at Proctor High School, Central High School, and for the Mor­rison County Agricultural Society on county fairgrounds in Little Falls. These Community Wind Power Projects are part of MP’s CIP ini­tiatives, through which the Company seeks to provide limited financial incentives for instal­lations of small-scale wind energy projects and conservation improvement within its service territory.

MP’s primary objectives in funding such proj­ects are to: increase public awareness of the importance of efficient energy use and renewable energy technologies – specifically, wind energy; facilitate, through CIP funding grants, public demonstrations of grid-connected, small-scale wind power technology (40 kilowatts or less); and encourage development of real-life working examples of renewable, wind energy technology that reinforce the principles of math and science and that can be integrated into classroom discussions and other public educational opportunities.