School seeks grant to harness wind power

The district is seeking letters of support to enhance its grant application.

By Rick Rouan

BOARDMAN— The Mill Creek MetroParks board voted last week to submit a letter of support for a grant proposal that could bring wind power to part of a local school district.

The Boardman Local School District is seeking multiple state grants to help build two WindCubes, one stacked upon another, near its athletic complexes behind Boardman Glenwood Middle School, said Jim Massey, director of operations.

The district is seeking letters of support to enhance its grant application.

“What better place to do this than a school,” Massey said.

The WindCubes would help power a weight room, a new athletic complex for wrestling and baseball and some outdoor lighting for sports fields, Massey said.

“It saves the taxpayers money,” Massey said.

Massey said that he could not pin down how long it would take for the WindCubes to pay for themselves, but he did estimate that the district could save $18,000 to $20,000 a year.

The school is doing wind tests to determine how viable the area is for producing wind energy. An anemometer, a device used to measure wind, was placed atop a light pole about a month ago, Massey said, adding that at least 90 days of data are needed.

Such a project could generate several local jobs, Massey said.

“It is a pretty neat thing,” Massey said.

Massey said that the district is still in the preliminary stages of an extensive, 60-page application for the grant. No decisions have been made about purchasing the turbines.

“We’re going to do as much as we possibly can and apply for this grant,” he said.

The district is working with Roth Bros., an energy conservation company headquartered in Youngstown.

The WindCube is designed for the medium-niche wind production, said Steve Koneval, vice president and part owner of Roth Bros.

The cube is about 22 feet long, 22 feet wide and about 10 feet deep, Koneval said, and it has a shroud around the turbine blades that acts like a funnel for the air, amplifying the wind speed. It can sit atop a building or on a standalone pole. Roth Bros. also can turn the WindCube to face the direction the wind is blowing through a computer system installed in the machine.

Koneval said that a typical wind turbine would need a blade radius of 50 feet to generate the same amount of power as the Wind Cube’s 15-foot radius.

“It brings our high-end technology into the wind industry in a totally different and unique way,” Koneval said.

rrouan@vindy.com