The Yale Facilities Department is bringing innovative technologies to visible parts of campus as part of an ongoing effort to explore and promote clean, renewable forms of energy production.

In March, Facilities installed ten small 1kW wind turbines on the roof of Becton Center. The turbines, which are visible from the intersection of Grove and Prospect streets, will make a strong statement to passersby from their perch on Becton, which houses engineering laboratories and a library, Yale Senior Energy Manager Tom Downing said. Built by AeroVironment Inc, the micro-wind turbines capture the wind blowing up the side of Becton and require only a 7 mile-per-hour breeze to produce electricity.

Facilities also plans to install a new type of solar energy system on the roof of Swing Space dormitory. Unlike older, bulkier systems, the new system will feature thin-film photovoltaic modules, made by Uni-Solar Ovonic. The 20kW system will produce about 3 to 5 percent of the dorm’s electrical power needs. The thin-film modules are unobtrusive and “can stick to almost anything,” Downing said.

Facilities chose to place the panels on Swing Space for both practical reasons—the building’s roof has a sun-soaked southern face—and to increase visibility in the community. A 40kW photovoltaic system has already been installed in the Divinity School and Kroon Hall, the new home of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, has a 100kW system. Adding more solar power systems on central-campus will make solar energy more visible to the Yale community.

Members of the Yale community and the public can see how much power Yale’s alternative energy sources are producing in real time on the Web.

Investing in alternative energy is only a part of Yale’s efforts to cut its emissions. Facilities also continues to pursue innovative ways to cut down on the University’s energy usage by making buildings more efficient. The department is currently conducting two large-scale energy studies, one to observe how energy is used in the serving areas of eight of the residential college dining halls and another to evaluate the feasibility of a solar water heating system in Payne Whitney Gym.