Driving along Highway 14 in Francesville, Indianawe saw a strange sight–an Indiana wind turbine!
While I-65 is full of Indiana wind turbines, this one stood solo. What made it especially unusual? It sits behind a school, West Central High School, to be exact.
Indiana Wind Turbines: School Power
This is a good move for so many reasons.
Not only is wind power clean energy, but a school has choices. They can choose to sell the power they create through their wind turbine or they can keep the energy for themselves. It’s like having free power each and every school year!
Of course, the wind turbine has to be paid off, but after the initial expense, and only a 7-10 year wait, that’s a whole lot of free electricity.
I’ve heard that the Francesville, Indiana school corporation is looking to partner with a college–which means hands-on training in a relatively new field!
West Central School Corporation Wind Turbine
This Indiana windmill looked different than the usual turbines you see around the north-western part of the state.
It is a 321 foot tall, 900 kw, three-blade PowerWind wind turbine, a German wind turbine manufacturer.
It is not quite as tall as other area wind turbines. But it has one even more noticeable difference: the red paint job that marks this turbine as Trojan country (the school mascot)!
Admire From Afar
While it might be tempting to get close to this Indiana windmill (it sits in a field, set back from the West Central school), please try to contain yourself!
Wind turbines are very large pieces of machinery that only specialized wind turbine technicians, garbed in hard hats and steel-toe boots, should ever approach.
Instead, admire this unique piece of Indiana from the other side of the road, okay?
You can see photos of Indiana wind turbines and other pictures in Indiana on my Flickr photostream.
West Central School Corporation
School Wind Turbine
1852 S US Highway 421
Francesville, Indiana 47946
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This is a really great post, for a lot of reasons. I think it’s cool that you notice these special reasons to appreciate little Indiana.
Thank you, Mari! I actually made hubs turn around for this one–it had been a loooong day of little Indiana exploring!