Teaching an annual workshop where participants learn how to make a small wind turbine suitable for adding to a farm or homestead scale renewable energy system. Our 5th workshop with Dan Bartman, building Homebrew Wind Turbines at the Handy Village Institute, was a great success. I’ve been reflecting on how we are building a community of people with knowledge and expertise in generating electricity
using small, scratch-built turbines. Pardon the pun, but this workshop has been very empowering! The process involves learning to use a variety of shop tools and techniques, as well as instruction is some basics in electricity and physics. We have welcomed participants from Belize, Haiti, and tribal members southern Louisiana, as well as local North Carolina residents who can now help each other out with safely raising and lowering towers, and keeping the turbines we make maintained. We even had a visit from William Kamkwamba, “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” at our 2017 workshop. Often, the people who tell us they get the most from this experience are the women who attend, as they discover that they can do metalworking and woodworking and that they love it! We are also working to erect two more towers for turbines we have built. I’m celebrating all of these fine connections to wonderful people, at home and around the world, demonstrating this small-scale and accessible alternative to fossil fuels.
