Cleveland Indians Install Wind Turbine At Ballpark

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Cleveland Indians' newest acquisition has power to all fields.

The club installed an innovative wind turbine on Wednesday, affixing the corkscrew-shaped structure to the top of Progressive Field. The revolutionary turbine, which amplifies airflow around a central cylinder to power four small fans, was designed at Cleveland State by Dr. Majid Rashidi, a professor of mechanical engineering.

Rashidi's design is more conducive for urban areas and confined spaces than a traditional long-blade wind turbine.

"Dr. Rashidi's new technology is playing a significant role in the advancement of wind energy," said Cleveland State president Ronald Berkman. "We are proud to showcase this exciting new design in our hometown along with the Cleveland Indians, and use this venue to move the technology closer to commercialization."

The 3,000-pound turbine will be operating by opening day on April 5, when the Indians host the Toronto Blue Jays. Development of the turbine was funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and state of Ohio.

The Indians are the first major league team to install a wind turbine, which isn't the team's first environmental projects. The club installed solar panels to its downtown ballpark in 2007, the first AL team to do so.

The Indians hope the turbine will cut costs, increase its use of renewable energy and potentially create new jobs in the region with the development of new technology.

"With this project we hope to not only benefit the environment by increasing our use of renewable energy, but also help an impressive new technology generate local jobs by taking advantage of Cleveland's great manufacturing workforce and factories," said Brad Mohr, assistant director of ballpark operations. "Working together with Cleveland State, we can take advantage of this great opportunity to continue to teach our fans about clean energy technologies."

The turbine is being mounted on the ballpark's southeast corner. It will be illuminated with colored LED lights and can be seen by anyone traveling into downtown on roadways from the south.

Comments

[NerdyStudent]

10:40 AM on 04/02/2012

Still won't improve Ubaldo's chances of actually pitching well again...

[Frank-Landfield]

09:44 AM on 03/30/2012

How about solar?! www.solarcity.com. Free. I got it. Works great. :-)

[tinygiraffe]

07:01 PM on 04/02/2012

The Indians installed solar panels in 2007. And I'm a huge fan (of solar) too. Just got our panels up and running last week. Good for the Indians leading the way on green energy and a sustainability-based economy!

[EqualTime]

02:48 PM on 03/29/2012

I wish the article described how many KWH the turbine generates, how consistently, what the back up plan for downtime is, and how much this cost per KWH for comparison to the power plant. That would be helpful info.

[bravegibson]

09:37 AM on 03/29/2012

Awesome idea!!! Now, being a Tribe fan, can we maybe go out and use the money we are saving on some OFFENSE!!!!!!

[Mailman]

11:59 PM on 03/28/2012

I'd like to see wind turbines on the Nantucket now that Ted Kennedy has died and wouldn't go along with green energy in his area. They should also add solar panels in Cleveland.

[Elliott Negin]

11:20 PM on 03/28/2012

I'd like to see wind turbines off the coast of Cleveland in Lake Erie, too. Now that would be something. Ohio is too dependent on coal for electricity, and both nuclear power plants in the state, Davis Besse near Toledo and Perry near Cleveland, are plagued by ongoing safety problems.

[June25]

10:08 PM on 03/28/2012

This is nice news but we need to to be reading about hundreds of windmills.If Cape Wind had been allowed in without opposition we might have 3 windfarms along the coast by now.

[JerzGirl226]

05:37 PM on 03/29/2012

Very interesting. I just wrote about Cape Wind for one of my classes a few weeks ago. The concept is really interesting and it would help out the tourism industry in that area a lot.