By Kate Hill

Staff Writer

The Fenner Renewable Energy Education (FREE) Center is located in the heart of the Fenner Wind Farm — a 30-megawatt commercial wind power facility that utilizes the power of 20 GE Wind Energy wind turbines.

The facility’s 328-foot tall wind turbines are situated on farmland leased from 14 different landowners.

Owned by Canastota Windpower, LLC — a subsidiary of ENEL Green Power North America — and co-developed with Atlantic Renewable Energy Corp., the Fenner Wind Farm was funded with assistance from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

The FREE Center — located on-site at 5520 Bellinger Rd., Cazenovia — is open to the public from mid-April to mid-November.

Visitors to the center learn about the wind power project and the benefits of renewable energy and other sustainable practices.

“It’s really a great resource for Fenner and the whole county,” said Phil Rose, secretary of the FREE Center Board of Directors. “We just have so many people come through here. The nice thing is that you can really get up close to one of the big wind turbines, but you also get a nice sense visually of the whole wind farm. You get to see how it lays out on the land.”

The educational space showcases a number of renewable energy technologies, including a solar array that both powers the center and feeds electricity into the Oneida-Madison Electric Cooperative (OMEC); a fast-growing shrub willow — planted by SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry — that produces large amounts of renewable biomass; and a composting toilet that disposes of human waste through decomposition and evaporation.

The FREE Center also offers educational outreach activities for school districts such as Chittenango, Morrisville-Eaton and Fayetteville-Manlius and colleges like SUNY Morrisville and SUNY ESF, as well as civic groups and municipal leaders.

On a clear day, both the Madison and Munnsville wind projects are also visible to the southeast.

Tours are offered for groups of ten or more people from May 1 through Oct. 31.

According to Judy Cary, president of the FREE Center Board of Directors, the wind farm has attracted visitors since before its completion in 2001.

“When construction started, people were very, very curious,” she said. “They had seen the parts coming in and they could see the construction starting. People would come over here, park their cars on the side of the road and start walking out across the fields to get an up close look at what was going on. They were eager to talk to the construction crews and the landowners to [learn about the project].”

After construction ended and operations began, the public continued to flock to the facility to investigate the wind turbines, to picnic, and to take in the views of the surrounding landscape.

“The next spring after construction was completed, the town offices started getting calls about bringing groups [up there] for educational purposes,” Cary said. “The town was very supportive of the idea of [a visitor’s center].”

Around the same time, landowners Scott and Donna Griffin offered to donate a marshy plot of land — located within the wind farm area — to the Town of Fenner for the creation of a designated visiting area.

In response to the offer and to the town’s encouragement, a group of local citizens joined together to form the Fenner Renewable Energy Education Center, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization created to establish and operate the wind farm’s educational center.

“Donna Griffin, who was chairman of the town planning board, and my husband, who was town supervisor at the time, started putting their heads together [to figure out] how the organization would work,” Cary said.

Eventually, it was decided that the plot of land would be donated to the Town of Fenner and leased to the newly formed educational organization for one dollar.

When the FREE Center opened in 2006, the site featured a single 113-foot wind turbine blade, donated by GE, and two informational kiosks, donated by NYSERDA.

Since opening, the center has continually evolved, increasing in both functionality and educational value.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) awarded the center its first major grant in the amount of $10,000.

“That allowed us to really establish the FREE Center,” Cary said.

The funding was secured with the assistance of then NYS Senator David J. Valesky.

The DEC grant funded the installation of the driveway, the parking area fence, and a covered, central informational kiosk — featuring renewable energy research posters created by SUNY Morrisville students.

According to Cary, the Town of Fenner and the Madison County Highway Department took on the task of filling in the marshy area and laying the driveway and parking lot.

The second major round of work on the center was funded by a $50,000 grant secured with help from then NYS Assemblyman Bill Magee.

Funded by the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, the grant helped to pay for the construction of a pole-barn style building and the installation of the center’s composting toilet.

The award also funded an additional kiosk and the solar installation, which was sited, designed, constructed and connected by SUNY Morrisville students, under the direction of Phil Hofmeyer, Ph.D. — SUNY Morrisville Associate Professor of Renewable Energy, co-chair for the Division of Environmental & Renewable Resources, and an instructor for the Renewable Energy Training Center.

The most recent site enhancements involved the transformation of the center’s original building into a finished “renewable energy classroom” that can accommodate up to 50 visitors.

Completed in spring 2019, the project was supported by National Grid and the Central New York Community Foundation.

National Grid awarded $2000 and the Central New York Community Foundation awarded $8,000 to the organization for the education center renovations.

The project included a number of enhancements, including the installation of interior walls, ceilings and lighting.

National Grid provided an additional $1,700 grant to facilitate the purchase of tables and chairs for the classroom.

“It was just a shell of a building,” said Rose, who joined the board around 2013 as a fundraiser and grant writer. “I wrote a grant and now the whole inside of the building is finished. It’s really nice . . . We are now in the process of buying artwork and sprucing it up a little.”

Due to rising concerns about global climate change and fossil fuel depletion, education and training in the area of renewable energy is perhaps more urgent now than ever before.

Rose believes that even small, local educational initiatives like the FREE Center can help drive change on a global scale.

“What I have been struck with since joining the board is the fact that increasingly, young people really get the importance of renewable energy,” he said. “They are totally on board . . . that’s a big shift in the level of awareness.”

The FREE Center relies on volunteers to help with events, publicity, fundraising, tours and more.

The current all-volunteer board includes Cary, Rose, Sally Lollman (Treasurer), Mary Bartlett, William Wester, Donna Griffin and Liz Crofut.

According to Cary, one of greatest challenges facing the organization today is its lack of continuous funding.

While the center has received funding for a number of specific projects, it has yet to secure financial support for its daily operations.

To learn about supporting the organization, email [email protected] or visit thefreecenter.org.