Come to the Eco Experience to find out how solar and wind power work in Minnesota

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For release: August 2, 2013

Contact: Pam McCurdy, 651-757-2559

Come to the Eco Experience to find out how solar and wind power work in Minnesota

St. Paul, Minn. -- Head to the Eco Experience at the Minnesota State Fair to get your renewable energy questions answered. Learn more about wind and solar energy options for your home and your community, plus have some fun along the way. 

Before you even go inside the Eco Experience, which is housed in the Progress Center, stop at the Tiny Solar House. This 150-square-foot cabin was designed and built by the Minnesota Renewable Energy Society (MRES). It features three types of solar energy and manages to fit in a bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, reading nook, and storage! 

If a solar-powered house doesn’t interest you, you can check out the solar-powered boat from Orono High School that sailed in MRES’s Solar Boat Regatta or the MRES solar trailer, made of eight full-size solar panels. 

The front yard of the Progress Center is your place for all things solar. See a solar-powered water fountain, solar toys, a solar-powered glowing bar, a photovoltaic-powered carport, and a solar hot water heater. And you can connect here with Minnesota companies that make solar panels. 

Head inside the Eco Experience to learn more in the wind and solar exhibit. Figure out what distributed generation and net metering are, and how many solar panels you need based on electricity use levels. Connect to the sun as you learn about solar energy and see demonstrations of actual equipment. Discover Minnesota’s solar resources and see a map of the state’s wind resources. You can find out which part of Minnesota is windiest, and whether wind can provide enough electricity to power the United States. 

Step up to a turbine base to learn that renewable energy is also reliable energy. Inside the base, a Windustry video explains how the lights stay on when you use renewable energy: the variability of wind and solar generation can be controlled through various tools and techniques that allow electricity to keep flowing even when power isn’t being generated. 

Discover how height impacts wind resources and which turbine height is best for a small home versus a large utility. You can also learn whether you could put a wind turbine on your roof, whether wind turbines pose a threat to wildlife, and what to consider if you’re thinking about installing a small wind turbine. 

Everyone loves a photo opportunity and we have some good ones. Pose with new photo-face cutouts: wind turbine workers, a farmer with wind turbines, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, and a twist on the famous painting “American Gothic.”

About the Eco Experience: A partnership between the Minnesota State Fair, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and over 120 organizations and businesses from across the state, the Eco Experience has become the second most popular exhibit at the fair. It is the largest environmental event of its kind, nationally, in the last two decades. Since 2006, more than 2.5 million visitors have attended the 25,000-square-foot exhibit to learn more about clean air and water, saving energy, climate change, recycling, healthy local food, transportation, green building and remodeling, and other ways to lead more eco-friendly lives. The Eco Experience is in the Progress Center building at the corners of Randall and Cosgrove. More information is available at http://www.ecoexperience.org.

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