Renewable Energy Education Program
Puget Sound Energy’s Renewable Energy Education Program (formerly the Solar Schools Program) was designed to promote solar photovoltaic and small wind demonstration projects at educational facilities. Since 2008, PSE has provided funds for 25 demonstration projects with schools (24 solar and 1 wind) in eight western Washington counties.
» See the map of existing demonstration projects
In 2012, PSE has ramped down the grant program for solar demonstration projects to focus on wind power education. Wind turbine design has exploded in recent years with numerous types of turbines and technical improvements. Further, measuring and understanding wind resources is significantly more complex than estimating solar resources.
To provide opportunities for students to delve into the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) complexities of wind power, PSE is sponsoring a project for grades 4 through 12 in Kittitas County in the spring of 2012. PSE has contracted with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) to work with the KidWind Project. KidWind is an international effort that has trained over 7,000 teachers and impacted more than 500,000 students in over 40 states since 2004.
KidWind trained “Wind Senators” and BEF staff will conduct a specially scheduled training for teachers in Kittitas County in February. These teachers and their students will work with small scale wind kits to build working turbines addressing several important design variables. Students will come together in teams to build, test and refine their designs. These teams will bring their best turbine design to a competition event called the KidWind Challenge. The Challenge will occur in May 2012 in Ellensburg, providing an opportunity for teams to test the performance of their turbine in a specially designed see through wind tunnel.
» See the KidWind website and the Kittitas KidWind Challenge sign up page
This site will be active for schools to sign up in early February. Please contact PSE if you have questions or are having difficulty getting signed up on the KidWind website.
Micah Haman
Customer Renewable Energy Program Manager
Puget Sound Energy
355 110th Avenue NE EST-10E
Bellevue, WA 98004