The West Central School Board signed a renewable energy credit contract. Superintendent Charles Mellon explains what that means for the corporation.
“Companies buy renewable energy credits – this is in connection with our wind turbine – that way they can say they are part owner of someone who is doing something along the ‘green lines,’ as far as not polluting the air. As a part of that, the corporation was awarded $67,000 for that right to those companies,” Mellon said.
The contract is for an eight-year period and when that time period is up, the board can renegotiate or send it out for bid. The corporation is only responsible for one thing.
“The corporation has to keep track of how many kilowatts we produce through wind, and they’re able to do some kind of report that compares the amount of kilowatts produced versus how much coal you would have had to burn to create that same amount of wattage. That shows how much pollution you didn’t allow in the air,” Mellon explained.
Mellon said that the turbine is working and producing kilowatts to be used to power the school.
“We’ve had days where we’ve produced about 17,000 kilowatts, which is very good. We need to actually average about 6,500 kilowatts per day in order to reach our 2.4 million kilowatts for the year,” said Mellon. “We have some of the less windy days approaching in July and August, but we will make it.”
