A grassroots committee of local teachers and businessmen hope the presence of two renewable energy sources will bolster the new high school’s curriculum while taking a bite out of energy costs.

The Windham Initiative for Renewable Energy has begun raising money to fund the construction of a wind turbine at the new high school and the installation of solar panels on the roof of the building.

While the power produced by both the turbine and the panels is expected to offset some of the building’s energy costs, the main focus has been to tie the technology into the school’s curriculum.

“One of the plans is to have a classroom version of this technology available to students so they can explore them and get to know them in-depth,” said Marie Fries, a committee member and dean of mathematics, science and technology for the new high school. “The focus is predominately towards the education of the community. It’s part of the idea of being a 21st-century school. This is another similar initiative in terms of looking toward the future in a positive light.”

With the student body of the high school limited to the sophomore and freshmen classes for the first year, Fries said the opportunity for those students to immediately begin working with the renewable energy technology would be small. Down the line a year or two, as the students gain more electives in their class schedules, the educational aspect of the technology will become available to them.

For fellow committee member and small business owner Carlo DiPersio, the presence of both sources of renewable energy could serve to help educate the community on green technologies.

“All of the data that is being generated by the weather stations or the output of the turbine are going to be available online for anybody on the town to see. The whole community gets to be involved in that educational aspect of it,” DiPersio said. “It will make our community more eco-friendly, but the other idea is that, as a country, we need to become more energy independent. For us, starting in a small way in Windham, New Hampshire, we believe it’s a way to grow from the school to the community to the state.”

DiPersio estimated the cost of building the turbine would be between $300,000 and $500,000, but the figures could change depending on the outcome of a site study looking at how much wind could be generated. A really good site could mean a bigger turbine, he said.

The size of the turbine could also determine when it is constructed. A smaller turbine could realistically be in place by September 2009, DiPersio said, but if the study recommends a bigger machine, the project may be pushed a year or two back. In the meantime, some members of the committee have begun talking to local businesses to find corporate sponsorship for the initiative and are asking for donations from Windham residents.

According to DiPersio, the proposal – endorsed by the School Board – has already generated interest within the community.

“There’s been a lot of interest. We’ve been getting a number of e-mails through the Web site and people talking to us in town,” he said. “I think New Hampshire is a little bit behind what a lot of other states have been doing for some time, and I think New Hampshire is starting to catch up.”