Destiny USA

Destiny USA announces wind power energy

News 10 Now By: Bill Carey 10/12/2007

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The Destiny USA team vowed that the new, expanded mall would be free of fossil fuel use and there have been a variety of steps taken to meet that goal. Construction equipment using bio-fuels. Shuttle buses using hybrid engines. Plans to construct car ports in new parking areas that will carry solar energy cells, producing power to operate the mall.

And now, there's yet another plan to produce energy, here in these parking areas. And it all involves the wind. As winds blow across the mall site, new wind turbines will be placed atop 16 light poles in the parking areas. Turbines that are compact, but powerful.

“With the wind we estimate on site that will generate 64,000 to 84,000 kilowatt hours per year of clean, renewable energy which will power the lights on those parking structures,” said Richard Pietrefesa of Destiny USA.

And the use of this type of renewable energy resource could get people thinking about the way they power their own homes.

“What's great about this is it's visible. When you're driving by, you don't know you're buying from the green grid. But this is going to be visible when people pull into the parking lots and say, what is that?” said Deputy Onondaga County Executive Ed Kochian. “And this is very fascinating because the implications for the household, residential use and so forth, because of the size of it, is phenomenal.”

A small family company has begun marketing the European-made units in the U.S. and is hoping to begin a manufacturing operation stateside in the near future to cut costs. For the founder, it is more than a business. It's become a mission.

“It's so important to be able to start reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and do something positive for the environment again,” said Debbie Besold of Tangarie Energy.

The turbines will be in place by the end of January.