A 20-mile-per-hour wind blew over the fields and through the timber stands of Chowan County’s wind farm one recent winter morning. Steel behemoths, nearly 600 feet tall, rose from the thousands of acres. Each of the 45 wind turbines in Apex Clean Energy’s Timbermill wind farm sits on an acre plot leased from a local landowner.
The turbines hum quietly as they spin, each revolution generating enough energy to power the average American home for four hours.
Apex Clean Energy’s Brian O’Shea and Timbermill Wind site manager Tyler Finley greeted a busload of sixth graders from Chowan County Middle School. It’s late December and the last day of classes before winter break. The kids came to tour the wind farm and learn more about the economic opportunities that hosting a wind farm provides in their home county.
“We really want them to understand what’s going on in their community — to see that there’s jobs here,” math teacher Laura Tarnaski said. “They can stay in Chowan County and have a good job.”
The children looked up to Timbermill’s flagship turbine, Penelope — named after the local Revolutionary War activist Penelope Barker. The windmill is so tall that if you stood atop Charlotte’s Wells Fargo Center, you could high-five the top of the blade as it passed its highest point.
“It’s a 4.2-megawatt wind turbine, and it generates enough power each year to power about 1,000 homes,” O’Shea said.
But Penelope — and her 44 sister turbines — do a lot more for Chowan County than just keeping the lights on.
“How much is taxes on it?” a student asked.
The company paid $3 million in taxes this year, but the county returned most of that money in economic development grants. Ultimately, Timbermill Wind produced $750,000 in revenue for the county.
“It's an economic driver as far as the tax is concerned, for sure,” County Commissioner Bob Kirby said. “They're the largest taxpayer in the county by far.”
The students were impressed by the turbines' size and cost. The developers spent about $7 million to build each one.
But Tarnaski said the field trip was about more than learning about clean energy. Chowan County is a small county with about 14,000 residents.
“We have so much of our youth, they’re going to other places for jobs,” Tarnaski said. “We want them to see the opportunities that we have in this county.”
The Timbermill wind farm only employs 8 full-time staff members, but the turbines also benefit the farmers who lease their land and air rights to the company.
Back at school, the sixth graders apply what they learned at the wind farm. Jase Goodwin and Parker Nixon blow on miniature plastic fan blades. The blades spun, and a red light on the back of the motor lit up.
Nixon says this wasn’t his first time near the turbines.
“One day I was deer hunting right beside one, and all you heard was 'woo, woo, woo',” Nixon said, imitating the whoosh of the blades as they spun.
Pedagogically, the trip was a success — in more ways than one. Goodwin said the windmill technicians had piqued his interest.
“It seems like a pretty good job, going up there, working on the stuff,” Goodwin said. When asked if he’d be afraid to climb 300 feet to work on the turbine’s motor, he said — emphatically — “No.”
