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Monday, September 6, 2010   58º

Updated 07/30/2010 06:05 AM

New wind turbine installed at SUNY Oswego

By: Andy Mattison

The incoming freshmen class won't be the only new arrival at SUNY Oswego this year. The university now has its first ever wind turbine. The Powair Sail model was installed Thursday morning and as our Andy Mattison tells us, it could go a long way toward helping the school reduce its carbon footprint.

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OSWEGO, N.Y. -- It stands eight feet by eight feet and now it has a new home on campus at SUNY Oswego. This Powair Sail was installed atop Lee Hall Thursday, giving the university its first ever wind turbine, a major step in bringing renewable energy to campus.

"We already had a relationship with SUNY ESF and they caught wind, no pun there, they caught wind of the wind turbines with the relationship with them and they spoke very highly and that's how SUNY Oswego found out about us," said Impact Technologies CEO Ray Davis.

Lee Hall's location near the lake makes it a perfect fit for the Powair Sail, a unique wind turbine model that is popping up everywhere and could change the way people think about wind power.

"Ours is designed to be closer to the ground. It works in turbulent winds. So we're looking for more of a rooftop application to capture those winds," said Davis.

"Most wind turbines have an output range from seven miles an hour on up to 35, 40. Where we're starting at three and we're harnessing energy up to 90 miles an hour, which is opening a couple doors that normal wind turbines couldn't open," said Powair Sail Inventor Derek Grassman.

In addition to classroom use, the university expects the turbine to provide them with about 40,000 killowatt hours of electricity a year. When the makers of the Powair Sail designed it, they say they had urban environments in mind.

"We wanted to do a smaller unit so that the residential sector understands that it's also feasible for them to use these types of wind turbines on their homes. When I designed it, I designed it for the consumer," said Grassman.

SUNY Oswego joins SUNY ESF and the Carousel Mall in Syracuse as places that have installed the Powair Sail. Could this new wind turbine be the future of alternative energy? The answer may be blowing in the wind.