ADAMS COUNTY, ILL. -- Wind energy is still a fairly new concept so Adams Electric tried something new. They had an open house to give people a first hand look at the first turbine in Adams County.
"We wanted to provide and opportunity for them to come out and see the turbine and see what it's all about and fortunately we had a beautiful day for it. We don't have a lot of wind, so we're not producing a lot of electricity but it's part of the wind business. When you get good wind, you produce a lot of electricity and obviously days it's not very windy you don't," said Adams Electric General Jim Thompson
The 335 feet tall turbine starts producing energy in a breeze as light as six miles an hour. The open house not only answered people's questions, but gave them an opportunity to make their own opinions about wind energy.
"I think it is something that needs to be looked into that we need a new way to get energy and I don't see anything objectionable about the noise here and I see the flicker over there. It changes by the hour. So I can't say that I would object to that either if I still lived out there," said Mary Shank.
At its full wind speed of 31 miles per hour it would supply enough energy to power 300 homes.
"It kind of offsets the power that we have to purchase off the grid because this is owned by our membership connected directly into the system that we own and they get the direct benefit of using the energy off of it," said Thompson.
Adams Electric is planning to build a second turbine in Brown County.
That will be done in Spring of 2011.
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