The Manoa campus of the University of Hawai'i will be the demonstration site of a newly designed, energy-generating wind turbine.

The PacWind SeaHawk vertical axis wind turbine \is being donated by the Energy Management Group to UH Manoa for installation on the roof of Saunders Hall, home to the Sustainable Saunders Initiative — a collaborative effort among faculty and students to pursue workplace sustainability.

The small VAWT will provide an opportunity for students to study the potential of wind generated power in an urban environment and coupled with a solar PV array, this system will demonstrate the potential benefits of solar/wind renewable energy power systems.

UH has set goals of generating 25 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, and achieving energy independence by 2050.

Unlike most modern wind turbines, the PacWind VAWT is essentially silent and not harmful to birds, so there are a much wider range of potential installation sites all over urban and residential Oahu and the neighbor islands that would create zero nuisance.

The Public Policy Center, its UH partners, and the Sustainable Saunders students will be assessing the performance and cost structure of this type of turbine, along with installation possibilities and barriers.