Jennifer Sullivan of Entegrity Wind Systems, Inc. will be one of the presenters of the Bioneers Cleveland 2008 workshop, "Saving Green: Reducing Energy Costs with Distributed Wind and Solar Generation". Investing in a wind turbine or photovoltaic arrays can yield significant savings, reduce your carbon footprint and present a positive image. Individuals and businesses will learn the process for purchasing and installing residential or commercial-scale turbines and solar arrays, the difference between “behind the meter” applications and utility-scale wind, case studies of other distributed wind applications, federal and state incentives, and more. Joining Jennifer will be Al Franz of Dovetail Solar & Wind (www.dovetailsolar.com).

BIONEERS CLEVELAND: Most of our presenters are local. How did you get involved with Bioneers Cleveland?

JENNIFER SULLIVAN: I grew up in Cleveland and on a recent visit ended up at a Green Dream Team event at Beachwood High School. The mother of a friend of mine is involved in Bioneers. Also, my company does a lot of work in Ohio.

BC: What does your company do?

JS: The company makes and sells commercial scale wind turbines—the type one would put next to a building, perhaps in the parking lot, a couple hundred feet from the building. It can power a school or other building, actually offset the power.

BC: What types of turbines are there? What’s the range in sizes?

JS:

• Residential scale—for an individual house. It generates less than 10 kilowatts and stands about 20 feet tall.
• Commercial scale—Entegrity’s systems for a public building or business, generates less than 50 kilowatts and stands about 120 feet.
• Utility scale—the type a utility company would buy to produce and sell power. These generate more than 1 megawatt of energy and stand over 300 feet tall. One of Entegrity’s turbines would fit on the blade of a utility scale turbine.

BC: How many systems have you sold?

JS: Entegrity has 100 systems installed. The company incorporated in 2004 in its current form and began selling turbines. We are actually sold out [of turbines] until February.

BC: How long have you, personally, been in this field?

JS: Actually, only since February. I was a lawyer before, doing business litigation. I did a small bit of environmental pro bono work.

BC: How does wind energy compare to solar energy?

JS: Solar energy costs about three to four times as much as wind at the present time.