Grant to finance wind turbine

    The Medford City Council voted on Oct. 14 to approve a $100,000 grant from a private organization to finance the construction of the city's first wind turbine.
    The Massachusetts Energy Consumers Alliance (Mass Energy) provided the grant to the Medford Clean Energy Committee, which will oversee the turbine project as part of a larger, city-wide initiative to "promote clean power options … and clean energy in Massachusetts," according to the committee's Web site. The turbine will be installed behind the John J. McGlynn School complex on Mystic Valley Parkway.
    According to Patricia Barry, director of the city's Energy and Environment Office, the turbine will produce 170,000 kilowatt hours in electricity per year. It will provide 10 percent of the McGlynn School's energy and save the city $25,000 in annual energy costs.
    The turbine will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 133 tons per year, which "is equivalent to burning about 13,700 gallons less gasoline," according to the committee's Web site.
    Barry said lessons on the turbine will be integrated into the McGlynn School's curriculum, helping to educate elementary and middle school students about alternative energy sources. McGlynn administrators purchased a program called Smartview that will allow children to track the wind turbine's progress.
    "[With Smartview,] the kids will be able to view right online what the wind speed [of the turbine] is and how much electricity we're producing from the wind," Barry told the Daily. "We've already started putting it into the curriculum."
    Construction of the turbine has already begun. "We've already installed the electrical structure, we're working on the foundation now," Barry said. If all goes well, Barry anticipates that the project will be completed by Dec. 31.
    In order to receive the grant from Mass Energy, Medford had to agree to certain conditions regarding the city's energy budget, including investing $100,000 in solar energy over five years. Barry said these stipulations were enacted to encourage the city to continue funding alternative energy sources.
    "Mass Energy wanted to see that the funding they gave us would be continually invested into other renewable projects," Barry said, describing one stipulation.
    The second stipulation is that the city must sell the turbine's Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to Mass Energy, as opposed to other organizations. RECs, which are sellable certificates that provide proof that electricity has been generated from a renewable energy resource, are expected to pay for $53,550 of the turbine's funding.
    According to an article in the Medford Transcript, city council members were initially apprehensive about the grants conditions.
    City Councilor Paul Camuso was among them. "We have to be careful," Camuso said in the article. "We basically sign our rights away with Mass Energy here."
    But Barry is not worried. "There's really only two main provisions, and really, we should be doing this anyway," she said.
    Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn shares Barry's feelings. "The city shares Mass Energy's goal to promote alternative sources of energy," McGlynn told the Transcript. "These conditions were similar to ideas already being explored by city officials."
    "It's really a brilliant concept, the idea of continual investing in renewable energy," Barry said.