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Our friends at NativeEnergy are participating in the dedication of a wind farm on Friday, in Greensburg, Kansas, one of the most resilient, ambitious, and inspiring towns in the world....
On Friday, April 30, 2010 residents of Greensburg, Kansas will witness a milestone in the town’s recovery and its effort to become “the greenest town in America.” Greensburg Mayor Bob Dixon will accept a plaque on the steps of the newly rebuilt City Hall, officially recognizing the environmental benefits from the Greensburg Wind Farm and recognizing the thousands of business and individual supporters from around the country.
The dedication ceremony, scheduled for 5pm, Friday, April 30, 2010, will be part of a weekend-long celebration of the rebuilding of Greensburg. Just three years after a devastating tornado leveled the town on May 4, 2007, destroying 95% of the homes and leaving a path of destruction 2 miles wide, the town continues to rebuild stronger and more environmentally sustainable than ever. For more information about the weekend’s plans events, please see this .pdf.
The Greensburg Wind Farm, which has been operational since mid-March, will create significant economic and environmental benefits for the town as the community continues to rebuild. The farm comprises 10 new 1.25 megawatt (MW) wind turbines, each 350 feet tall with a blade span (rotor diameter) of 210 feet. The wind farm will generate enough energy to power 4,000 homes – more than enough for every home, business and municipal facility in Greensburg. The wind farm’s developer, John Deere Renewables, has donated the rights to about one-third of the renewable energy credits from the wind farm to the City, officially making the City “wind powered.”
City Administrator, Steve Hewitt, commented, “The City of Greensburg is excited to achieve our goal of becoming powered by 100% renewable energy – help from NativeEnergy made that possible. Our effort to rebuild as a sustainable community following the devastation three years ago is evident by the construction of the Greensburg Wind Farm.” Administrator Hewitt continued, “It is encouraging to know that environmental benefits of the wind farm have reached far beyond our community to the thousands of businesses and individuals from around the country that have purchased the renewable energy credits.”
“The Greensburg Wind Farm is NativeEnergy’s most ambitious Help Build project, and we are deeply gratified by the enthusiastic response to it by our Charter Supporters and many other customers,” said Tom Boucher, NativeEnergy’s founder and CEO. “When looking for projects to engage with, we are guided by a desire to do our work in communities that strongly value the project and its contribution to the local welfare. NativeEnergy and its buyers are honored to play a small part in the remarkable rebirth of Greensburg.” The Greensburg Wind Farm is located on farmland just southwest of the town. Several farm families will receive direct economic benefit from hosting the wind turbines.
The Greensburg Wind Farm is a wind energy project developed with critical financial support from NativeEnergy, Inc. in cooperation with charter supporters: Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc., Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, Stonyfield Farms, Clif Bar and Company, Aveda, Reverb, and Brighter Planet, and non-profit partner Clean Air - Cool Planet.
NativeEnergy, an innovator in the voluntary carbon market, has purchased the rights to the remaining two-thirds of the renewable energy credits from the wind farm providing critical upfront funding to the project. Without this additional revenue, the wind farm would not have been built. The renewable energy credits generated by the wind farm have been converted to carbon offsets through a rigorous, internationally recognized third-party standard.
Under NativeEnergy’s Help Build approach, charter supporters, other businesses and individuals can balance-out their carbon footprints by buying offsets, which are then retired by the non-profit Clean Air – Cool Planet. The revenues from carbon offsets help build new carbon-reducing projects like the Greensburg Wind Farm. The energy generated by the Greensburg Wind Farm will displace fossil-based energy and reduce hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon pollution that otherwise would enter Earth’s atmosphere.
The project’s performance will be third party verified annually, and the resulting reduction of carbon dioxide will be third-party verified every five years for 20 years.
