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KFYR-TV (ND) As North Dakota continues to expand opportunities to create energy from wind, Bismarck State College and Montana-Dakota Utilities is also looking at how to educate young people about wind and its possibilities. The two groups got some help from the Department of Commerce to install a small wind turbine on the campus that will serve a number of purposes. It’s no secret North Dakota is windy, and the hill on which the Bismarck State College campus sits is a prime location to harness some of that wind for energy. And that’s what the college is doing. The school installed this small turbine with a capacity of 2.4 kilowatts, to power a maintenance building. It’s also an opportunity for the college to integrate wind into curriculum. "The intent is not to have students climbing the pole, and climbing up to the top, but we’re going to use it for electricity," says Kari Knudson, of Bismarck State College. "We’re going to use it for value and start to really expose students to the renewable component." Students can track data from the turbine, like wind speed and how much electricity it’s producing, online or on display inside the National Energy Center of Excellence on campus. Montana-Dakota utilities will also use that data for its own education. "We will get data from this collaboratively with Bismarck State College and the Department of Commerce and kind of learn how this might be able to kind of provide distributed energy throughout our service territory as well," says Dave Goodin, of Montana-Dakota Utilities. The Department of Commerce says this educational tool is an important step in preparing young people for what could possibly be in store for them. "It is important as well that students and our population learn about wind since it’s becoming integrated into our energy system and this is one way in which it can occur," says Department of Commerce Commissioner Shane Goettle. Because over time we’re about to see more of these, popping up all over North Dakota’s landscape. The Skystream 3.7 was installed by Great Country of Bismarck and is designed to power homes and small businesses. |
