There’s a new landmark along Interstate 95 – a 156-foot-tall wind turbine on the Warwick campus of New England Institute of Technology.
Together with a new set of photovoltaic panels on the school’s Electrical Technology Building, the turbine generates enough electricity to power 18 to 20 homes annually. But cutting energy costs isn’t the reason New England Tech made the eco-investment. The real purpose of the equipment is to give students hands-on training in making the world a greener place.
In the near future, the school expects half its 3,000 students will be working with the turbine and the solar panels as part of their class work. Those enrolled in the electrical technology program will start this fall.
“This curriculum will help students understand the principles of the new green building requirements,” says Conserve By Design’s Connie McGreavy, a consultant on eco-friendly design who advised the school during development of the new curriculum. “Programs like this are extremely important. There’s an emerging green economy, and right now we’re in train-the-trainers mode.”
Steve Kitchin, New England Tech’s vice president for corporate education and training, said students attend “with the goal of learning and pursuing a career. By adding green technology, not only do we prepare them for the traditional work an electrician will do, we’ve also prepared them for whatever the future might hold.”
New England Tech may be one of the first vocational schools to add environmental classes, but it won’t be the last. The construction industry is getting greener, and professionals in the field are expected to stay ahead of the trend. Many hospitals, universities, state governments (including Rhode Island’s) and even private businesses want their new buildings to meet environmental and energy-conscious standards like those developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. They cover energy efficiency, water savings, indoor environmental quality, materials selection, and sustainable site development.
The first New England Tech students to begin studying the school’s turbine and solar panel system will be those in the associate’s degree program in electrical technology.
Other students will begin taking eco-technology classes by 2010. “The electrical technology program will include wind power, photovoltaic power and hydropower,” Kitchin says. “Students in the heating and plumbing program will soon be studying solar technology and gray water technology. The refrigeration and air conditioning program will include a section on geothermal technology. In our automotive program, students will be learning about hybrid vehicles. It’s a unique set of programs with a great synergy between them.”
To ensure they are not simply tilting at windmills, New England Tech sought advice from a committee of industry professionals in developing the new “green curriculum” programs.
The school’s new wind tower is a Northwind 100 turbine manufactured by Northern Power of Vermont. The turbine has 100 kilowatts of rated power and it is estimated that it could generate 164,029 kW hours annually. For the solar power system, the school used 135 SolarWorld photovoltaic panels. The price of the turbine was $455,000; the solar panels, $255,000.
“The new technology will provide the school with some savings in energy costs. That’s absolutely true,” Kitchin says. “The turbine will generate 20 percent of the electricity used in our Automotive Technology Building. But they’ll have to generate an awful lot of electricity to be an economically viable enterprise. That’s not why we did it. We did it because students need this training, no doubt about it.” •
