July 31, 2006

 

The Saco City Council of Saco, Maine, voted to spend up to $8,000 on a residential-sized windmill to be installed at the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

According to The Portland Press Herald, the idea for the windmill came from members of the Saco Energy Committee, who toured a major windmill installation in Hull, Mass. The two Massachusetts windmills power the city’s municipal and school needs with leftover electricity that is sold.

Saco will use a 75-foot-tall Skystream turbine with six-foot blades. The council estimates that the windmill will produce about 400 kilowatt-hours per month. This is less than the 600,000 killowatt-hours used each year at the sewage plant.

Howard Carter, the treatment plant manager, told The Portland Press Herald that the windmill should pay for itself in about ten years.