Hurricane Sandy's Winds Expected to Produce Record Energy at Endeavour Middle School

Winds associated with Hurricane Sandy may mean scattered garbage cans and downed power lines for some in southeast Michigan, but for students studying alternative energy at Endeavour Middle School, it's a unique opportunity to study their wind turbine as never before.

Students at Endeavour are expecting to see record amounts of energy produced by their 60-foot wind turbine as Michigan feels the effects of the storm now pounding the East Coast.

“Students are making some predictions about wind speeds and the amount of energy we’ll produce in the next few days,” said David Rayes, principal of Endeavour Middle School, in a prepared statement. “Not only are they learning some great math skills, it truly helps them understand how a national news item, like Hurricane Sandy, can impact them right here in New Haven.”

New Haven Community Schools built the wind turbine last year as part of its K-12 alternative energy curriculum. As an added bonus, the turbine also generates energy for the school, located in Ray Township.

Since the turbine was hooked up to a kilowatt-hour monitoring system in June of this year, it has produced 471 kWh of energy, which is enough energy to light a light bulb for more than 36,000 hours or to power an entire home for two weeks.

The New Haven wind turbine is currently producing 10 to 14 kilowatt hours of energy each day, but is expected to produce significantly more if and when Hurricane Sandy's winds make their way west.