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Learn some of the many ways EWEB customers support local schools and help inspire kids to explore the wonders of watershed health and clean energy resources.
Find Out MoreOur skilled journeymen are experts in their field, with thousands of training hours and real-world experiences.
Find Out MoreBy upgrading substations – key nodes in the electric grid – EWEB is investing today in a resilient electric grid for the future.
Find Out MoreA wrap up of the May 2nd EWEB Board of Commissioners Meeting
Find Out MoreThe application period is now open for the Electric Mobility Community Grants. Mobility Grants of up to $25,000 will be awared to five nonprofits, schools and academic intitutions, government and other public agencies to cover costs associated with their electric mobility projects.
Find Out MoreEWEB's Greenpower subscribers voted to award this year's Greenpower Grant to Friends of Trees, a local nonprofit that brings trees to areas of Eugene and Springfield with low tree equity.
Find Out MoreFollow along as the Currin Substation, the first of 10 substations in 10 years, is rebuilt from the ground up as part of EWEB's Capital Improvement Plan for major infrastructure investments to rehabilitate, replace, and install new infrastructure.
Find Out MoreToday and every day, we celebrate and honor the hard work, innovation and dedication of electrical line workers.
Find Out MoreThe EWEB Board of Commissioners discussed prefunding Leaburg, the 2022 State of the Watershed report, and the General Manager's performance evaluation at their April 4th, 2023 meeting.
Find Out MoreIt’s spring-- the time of year when birds are nesting in our trees. EWEB crews take special care to avoid disrupting birds when they’re trimming trees. But tree trimming is a necessary part of delivering safe and reliable power. We went out with a crew to find out how it's done.
Find Out MoreEWEB is excited to announce the eligible candidates for the 2023 Greenpower Grant! The winner of the Greenpower Grant will be voted on by Greenpower subscribers. Learn more about each origanization and their proposal before casting your vote.
Find Out MoreCrews are identifying and addressing equipment failures before wildfire season and doing so mitigates risk of fire ignition.
Find Out MoreCarbon is everywhere. But do we really understand what it is and what is being referred to when people mention it? We are taking it back to the basics in this article that breaks down carbon and explains what it is at it's most basic element and why we need to pay attention to it.
Find Out MoreAs a utility, EWEB is known for providing water and electricity to Eugene residents. But EWEB also operates the largest publicly owned open-access fiber network in Oregon. The infrastructure of underground fiber that connects high-speed internet in downtown Eugene needs to be maintained. Gretchen Lowen is the engineering technician who oversees changes or additions to EWEB’s fiber system.
Find Out MoreEWEB customers use more than twice as much water in the hot, dry summer months, compared to the cold, rainy winter months. The higher summer water use can almost assuredly be attributed to customers watering their lawns and gardens.
Find Out MoreMay 02, 2023 • Rachael McDonald, EWEB Communications
Seventh graders in the Bethel School District put their handmade wind turbines to the test in a wind power challenge supported by EWEB grants last week .
Teacher Cathy Bechen coordinates the EWEB grant program for Bethel School District. She said this competition culminates the energy unit for middle schools in the district. She said learning how to build a wind turbine is just one aspect of the project.
“First of all, learning about renewable energy is really important in these kids’ lifetimes. They’re really going to need to do a lot of thinking about them, so this is a good start,” Bechen said. “It helps them to learn to work together, and be creative, and a lot of them have never done things like this. So, they’re learning new skills and being successful. And it’s fun to see the kids come to this and look forward to it.”
For the final test, the two top teams from each seventh-grade classroom in the district brought their turbines to the gym at the Meadow View School in the Bethel neighborhood. The teams, who consisted of two to three students each and had fun names like TeamMoka and Twinkies. They were each interviewed about how they worked together on the project. EWEB commissioner Sonya Carlson and staff members Aaron Orlowski and Marciana Rosales volunteered to assist with the event.
Before teams tested their turbines to see how much energy they generate They could do a trial run to work out any kinks. The turbines look somewhat like you’d imagine, blades connected to a hub. For the test, performed by Dean Livelybrooks, physics professor at the University of Oregon, the turbines are attached to a stand and wires go into a mechanism that measures power over time.
“So we run it with the fan, we drive it with the fan,” he said.
The fan’s wind moves the blades.
“We run it for 60 seconds. We basically integrate, or sum up, the power over time and they produce a certain amount of energy at the end and that’s their score from this station,” said Livelybrook. “That’s their energy score, essentially.”
“Okay, so here we go,” said Livelybrook as he set the wind turbine in front of the fan. “We’re centered. Life is good. Let’s go ahead and fire that up.”
He tested each of the teams’ turbines. Design aspects like blade pitch and number of blades can affect the energy the turbines produce. Livelybrook said he’s helped with this competition for the last 15 years.
“My experience is that middle school students really respond to this, and I think this sort of activity targeted at that level, middle school level, helps keep students’ interest in science and engineering as they go through,” Livelybrook said.
The first-place prize went to a team named the Twinkies from Meadow View School, second place went to the Nothings from Meadow View, and there was a tie for third place: The Rats from Prairie Mountain, and the Boiz from Shasta.
EWEB customers help support the wind energy unit at Bethel and other science education programs through grant funding. EWEB education grants total $500,000 annually for Eugene, Bethel, Springfield, and McKenzie School Districts.
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