Wind Turbine Generates Green Energy at Goodwillie
Thanks to a generous donation from the Wege Foundation, GES is sporting a wind turbine manufactured right here in Grand Rapids at Cascade Engineering. Named the SWIFT, this turbine is a pole mountable unit suitable for commercial or residential use. The SWIFT is very quiet and its sustainable design is carbon and energy positive within four years of installation. Our hope is that our SWIFT will generate enough green energy to power our chicken coop, making The Yolk’s On Us, Inc. and future chicken businesses even more environmentally friendly.
Goodwillie sixth graders have assisted in the project by collecting weekly data from our anemometer. Students then compared this data to other sites in the area, such as Blandford Environmental School and the Gerald R. Ford International Airport. They learned to use functions in Microsoft Excel to calculate average wind speeds. This was no small feat considering the anemometer logged wind speeds every five minutes! Once all speeds were averaged, students created a radar graph known as a “Wind Rose” as a visual representation of our study.
We are thankful to the Wege Foundation for their generous contribution to our school and for providing GES students with this learning opportunity. If you’re interested in seeing a real-time snapshot of the green energy we’re creating, click on the link below. It shows the watts currently being generated.
SWIFT Wind Turbine Data Sheet
Curious about the technical details of Goodwillie’s SWIFT wind turbine? Download the two-page PDF provided by the manufacturer, Cascade Engineering, by clicking on the link below.