Given the green-light from school officials, a group of local residents hopes to give students a hands-on opportunity to work with renewable energy sources at the new high school.

Formed by the School Board in 2008, the Windham Initiative for Renewable Energy has set its sights on installing solar panels and erecting a fully functional wind turbine at the not-yet-opened high school by next spring.

“We are working on a fullfledged fundraising tour to garner the $58,000 (the project will cost). Our commitment was to do this without taxpayer funding,” said Alan Carpenter, a board member of the Windham Initiative for Renewable Energy. “My expectation is that it will be a lot of work and take the better part of a year.”

Carpenter, a former selectman and Planning Board member, said the group has already collected about $3,000 for the project. While WIRE is also studying the possibility of applying for and using grant money to fund a portion of the project, Carpenter said he expects most of the donations to come from residents.

According to Carpenter, the group will wait until after fundraising efforts have finished to begin looking at what kind of wind turbine to purchase, though he believes it will be a medium-sized model with a 60-foot tower and 10- to 15-foot diameter blades. While that will not be enough to save the district much money on energy costs at the school, Carpenter said the emphasis has been on how it will benefit the science curriculum.

“The payback is based on the enhancement to the curriculum. We’re looking to send our students off to college through renewable energy 101,” he said. “When they get to engineering schools, they’re not starting from scratch. They’ve got some hands on experience so that when they get to the engineering schools, they are stepping into sophomore level. We want it to be as fulfilling and enriching as possible. Everything we’re doing is about the students, not about saving energy costs.”

After two years of studying the data garnered from the weather conditions near the school and the energy produced by the turbine, WIRE will take another look at possibly bringing in a larger turbine, according to Carpenter.

In the meantime, School Board Chairman Bruce Anderson said the turbine and solar panels will be a great way to get students involved in renewable energy and interested in alternative energy sources.

“It won’t produce a significant amount of energy, but the educational purpose is to look into alternative energy. I think hopefully down the road, they’ll raise enough money to talk about putting in a larger turbine and more panels that will produce a more significant amount of energy,” Anderson said. “It is definitely consistent with a lot of what we see happening in the world today ... It’s a great opportunity to get kids excited in high school.”