(Archived Article) Wind-Power Experiment Planned on Brooklyn Plot

The following was gleaned from an article with the above title published on November 19 and 20, 2010 by the New York Times.

Wind-Power Experiment Planned on Brooklyn Plot

Debra Salomon was on her way to the new Fairway market in Red Hook, Brooklyn, when she took a wrong turn and found herself on a windblown pier that had two 90-foot Eiffel-like towers rising into the sky for no apparent purpose.

Ms. Salomon quickly saw a purpose. She is a designer and teaches design at the City University of New York, and she has been interested in finding ways to economically adapt wind energy to individual buildings. So her mind took a turn of its own.

“That looks like it should have a wind turbine on top of it,” she remembers telling herself.

The towers were located on property owned by Greg O’Connell, who, among other things, is curious about harnessing the power of wind. He was willing to let Ms. Salomon borrow the towers for her brainstorm.

The towers, were so situated that the gusts blowing off Upper New York Bay were striking them at an average of 13.5 miles per hour, double the city’s average wind speed and fit to spin the contoured blades of a small turbine consistently. The surrounding buildings were low, posing no obstructions to the wind.

Now Ms. Salomon, with a $12,500 grant from the city’s Economic Development Corporation and the collaboration of a couple of start-up entrepreneurs, wants to build an experimental 15-foot-tall, butterfly-shaped turbine atop those towers. It would produce three kilowatts of electricity to power a charging station for electric cars.

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