By Elianna Novitch
The University of Iowa Student Government passed a bill on Tuesday that proposed the group allocate $7,700 from the UISG Contingency account to American Wind Energy Association to relocate the educational wind turbine on campus from the Madison Street University Services Building location to the Hawkeye Recreation Fields.
The UI currently has a wind turbine located by the University Services Building that requires wind speeds of 5 to 8 mph to generate substantial power. Currently, the wind turbine produces 0.3 megawatts of power per year because it averages 2 to 4 mph in wind speeds at its current location.
The bill proposed that the wind turbine be relocated from in front of the Services Building to the Hawkeye Recreation Fields. In this new location, the wind speeds average from 7 to 10 mph, and the wind is more consistent, making the maximum power output seven megawatts per year.
Having a wind turbine on campus can also serve an educational purpose for students. Students have direct access to the physical wind turbine and all of the data it produces.
The wind turbine can also be lowered to examine the blades and its inner workings, and the data can provide statistics on wind-energy generation for classes like Sustainable Systems, Experimental Engineering, Wind Energy, Fundamentals of Wind Turbines, and Wind Power Management.
The bill recognized that the turbine could be an incredible asset for experiential learning in the College of Engineering and other relevant courses.
According to the bill, moving the turbine will also be in line with the UI’s 2020 Sustainability vision because a properly placed wind turbine will help the UI transition from its dependency on fossil fuels to achieve the goal of 40 percent renewable energy consumption on the campus by 2020.
The anticipated completion date of this project is this summer. The process is expected to take three to five months.
