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The wind of turning into a renewable company now blows over Intel. On the rooftop of Intels’ Santa Clara headquarters, a mini-wind farm was installed. This is one of the nation’s largest micro-turbine arrays and is expected to generate about 65 kWh of wind power for providing electricity to the conference center in the rambling Robert Noyce Building on Mission Boulevard.
A total of 58 micro-turbines were installed on the roof of Intel’s headquarters as a pilot wind power project. Those turbines are 6 to 7 feet tall, weigh about 30 pounds and are fixed at the roof’s edge for gathering wind. In the area, the wind speeds averagely 8 to 9 miles per hour. In addition to the micro-turbines, a small-scale solar array is also paved on the rooftop.
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"We are trying to understand how this type of technology integrates into Intel and where are the best locations for it around the world," said Marty Sedler, director of Intel's global utilities and infrastructure, reported San Jose Mercury News Business. "We'll share the data and share the information so other people can apply it to their own businesses and homes," he said.
The installation represents Intels’ sustainability program as well as the largest one the company has identified. Like Goolge and Apple, global leading tech companies that are turning to green power, Intel has been green for years. It was recently recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the largest voluntary purchaser of green power in the U.S. 12 Intel campuses in the U.S., Israel and Vietnam were installed with solar arrays, generating over 12 million kWh of clean energy annually.
Intel’s destination is to get off the grid, noted Sedler.
(top photo: Intel CEO Brian Krzanich on the roof of Intel's headquarters Robert Noyce Building checking out the company's new wind microturbines. With Krzanich is Josh Beckwith, construction project manager with JLM Energy, the Rocklin California company that built and is installing the micro-turbines.)
