May 21 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Josh Mrozinski The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.

A community action agency has started to promote wind energy and expects to have windmills available for installation this summer.

Montrose-based Trehab is marketing residential turbines through its for-profit subsidiary, Trehab Energy and Home.

"We're looking to put up three to five turbines this summer," Trehab Executive Director Dennis Phelps said. "We're also working with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture to market to small towns."

Already, Trehab has a waiting list of 30 individuals who want a windmill.

"Any profits made by the subsidiary will be put back into the nonprofit agency," Mr. Phelps said.

The windmills will be provided by Southwest Windpower of Flagstaff, Ariz. Two months ago, Trehab became a dealer for Southwest Windpower.

"They approached us as a group," Southwest Windpower co-founder Andy Kruse said. "We're a 20-plus-year-old manufacturer of small-scale wind generators."

The company has built more than 100,000 windmills, he said. Trehab will be distributing a 1.9-kilowatt windmill known as Skystream.

Skystream is available on towers that range from 33 feet to 110 feet tall. Mr. Kruse said it can cost from $13,000 to $15,000 to install a Skystream.

He added that a windmill could provide 20 to 90 percent of a home's or business's energy needs.

For the past two years, Trehab researched renewable energy programs.

After discovering people were growing increasingly concerned with the rising cost of energy, Trehab decided to promote wind power.

Mr. Phelps said wind power fits with Trehab's mission because the agency already has a weatherization program that works with people to install energy-saving measures in their homes.

Within six weeks, a windmill will be installed at a complex in Tunkhannock Township off Route 92, where a Trehab office is located, Mr. Phelps said.

The windmill will be connected to a nearby state Department of Agriculture office located at the complex.

Trehab is not the only Wyoming County business to promote wind power. Keystone College is testing wind resources at its campus in hope of generating wind power by 2009.

In southern Wyoming County, BP Alternative Energy is looking to have a 35- to 90-turbine facility in operation by the end of 2009.

For more information about Trehab's wind energy program call 278-3338.

Contact the writer: jmrozinski@timesshamrock.com