Rhode Island Businesses Team Up

to Harness the Swift Power of Wind

By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI staff

The SWIFT Wind Turbine generates about 2,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year.Three small Rhode Island businesses have joined forces to become players in the emerging alternative energy field.

Winthrop Solutions LLC, a financing firm in East Providence, CriSM LLC, a facilities management company in Johnston, and Pro-Paint Plus, a full-service contractor in North Kingstown, have partnered to bring a roof-mounted wind turbine, the SWIFT Wind Turbine, to the Ocean State.

Pro-Paint Plus, which is based in the Quonset Business Park, is the only licensed dealer of the small turbine in Rhode Island. Thomas Marsocci, who owns the business with his wife, Carol, said the company has introduced the turbine to the permitting and zoning agencies in six high-wind communities — North Kingstown, South Kingstown, Jamestown, Newport, East Greenwich and Charlestown.

“We want to be environmental leaders and energy independent,” said Marsocci, who would eventually like to expand his company’s Swift reach into southern Massachusetts and southern Connecticut. “We would like to start an energy revolution that replaces fossil fuels in this area.”

No SWIFT Wind Turbine has been erected in Rhode Island, which is one of four New England states that has a licensed dealer. Eleven other states also have licensed dealers for the turbine, which was introduced to the United State a few years ago.

Developed by Renewable Devices in Edinburgh, Scotland, the SWIFT turbine is a structure or pole-mountable device that generates electricity by harnessing the power of the wind as a cost-effective energy source for commercial, industrial and residential uses.

The turbine generates about 2,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year — an average U.S. household uses between 8,000 and 10,000 kilowatt hours a year — and can produce up to 20 percent of a home’s electrical power with an average wind speed of 12 mph, according to the United Kingdom-based company.

Developed by Renewable Devices in Edinburgh, Scotland, the SWIFT Wind Turbine is now available in the United States.Two years ago, Renewable Devices partnered with Cascade Engineering in Grand Rapids, Mich., to offer the turbine in the United States.

“The greening of America is just starting,” said Winthrop Solutions President Howard Weldon, who also is involved in two wind turbine projects in southern Minnesota. “Europe is way ahead of us in the renewable energy field.”

Marsocci said the SWIFT Wind Turbine is designed to generate electricity quietly — 35 decibels, roughly the sound of polite conversation, is as loud as it gets. However, this 9-foot-high, 200-pound turbine with a 7-foot diameter needs a strong average wind speed, he said.

Homeowners and property owners can measure wind speed with an anemometer, often available for rent or they can hire a professional to do a site visit. SWIFT also offers an online wind-speed estimate for various locations.

The SWIFT Wind Turbine, which is installed as a complete working system, costs between $16,000 and $18,000, according to Marsocci. The installation of a wind turbine comes with federal and state tax incentives, and possible grant money, depending upon where it is being installed, he said.

The SWIFT turbine needs a minimum of 2 feet of clearance above the roofline, and 25 feet is recommended between multiple units.

The Washington, D.C.-based American Wind Energy Association recommends placing such a turbine at least 30 feet above anything in a 500-foot radius.

For more information, visit propaintplus.com or swiftwindturbine.com.

Apeiron Graduates Learned Green Skills

for a Changing Economy

By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI staff

PROVIDENCE — Eighteen Rhode Island residents, previously underemployed or unemployed, recently re-entered the local job market, equipped with the latest skills to find employment in the fast-growing green jobs market.

They were the first graduates of the Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living’s Whole Home Health and Energy Efficiency program, which is designed to train people to fill a variety of energy-related positions within the local workforce.

The program is funded through the Workforce Investment Act, a federal program that supports unemployed and underemployed individuals.

“These graduates are now equipped with eight state and nationally recognized certifications and skills that will help them find positions in a variety of businesses that work with energy efficiency and auditing, primarily in the residential building trades,” said Mark Kravatz,  Apeiron’s director of sustainable business development.

With Rhode Island’s plentiful old housing stock and rising energy costs, he said, there’s a growing need for “house doctors” to conduct energy audits.

“Our homes bleed energy,” Kravatz said. “Our graduates can teach homeowners how to save money.”

The Whole Home Health and Energy Efficiency program is designed to train dozens of individuals in several four-month sessions over the course of a year, Kravatz said.

Students in the program’s first class, which graduated last month, were from a broad age group, and were individuals who were caught up in the economic downturn that has resulted in a 13 percent unemployment rate in Rhode Island .

The program’s first 18 students also came from various professional backgrounds, including a retail retailer,  glass artist, administrative assistant, restaurant owner, senior manager, warehouse manager and a physician.

Kravatz said the recent graduates will have numerous employment options, such as working for companies and organizations that are involved in building efficiency, environmental consulting and environmental contracting.

Some also are considering becoming entrepreneurs . “Students realize they need to create the green economic market themselves, and some are developing business plans that would lead to the creation of their own businesses,” said Kravatz, a Providence College graduate with a degree in public and community service studies.

The program is comprehensive and features 20 statewide expert instructors, including professors from Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design, who provide hours of training in specific subject areas and in green economic policies and market analysis.

The class costs $5,000 and meets for a total of 308 hours, usually from 6-10 p.m., Monday through Thursday. Financial assistance is available.

Among the eight certifications that graduates earn are:

• Building Analyst Certificate training from the Building Performance Institute, a nationally recognized certificate for energy auditing. Training is coordinated with the Community College of Rhode Island.

• Apeiron Institute certificate for 100 hours of training in building technologies, energy policy and energy auditing.

• Community College of Rhode Island certificate for an introduction to energy auditing.

• Introduction to residential building code, taught by Jack Leydon, Rhode Island building code commissioner.

• Safety training certificate from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)/Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZOWOPER).

Johnson & Wales Grads Cook up Green Business

By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI staff

Green Gal Catering's executive chef, David Hernandez, applies a finishing touch. (Kristina DiVona photos)Cows don’t like lemons. At least that’s what local caters Sonya Bradford and David Hernandez recently discovered.

To rectify this culinary misjudgement, the two business partners spent a recent morning picking dozens of lemon halves out of a trough at the Westport Rivers Vineyard & Winery.

“It was an unfortunate situation,” said Hernandez, without elaborating for whom — he and his fellow thirtysomething or the finicky bovine?

Owning and operating a green catering business is difficult. Booking events, planning menus and preparing dishes are just a small part of trying to grow a zero-waste business. Much time is spent locating environmentally friendly supplies, developing relationships with local farmers and vendors and learning the tricks of composting, such as finding out what food scraps cows will eat.

Bradford started Green Gal Catering about a year ago, with a vision of creating a no-waste business focused on preparing and serving wholesome local foods that are antibiotic-, hormone- and pesticide-free.

The Johnson & Wales University graduate had worked for many years in the catering field and had grown increasingly frustrated with the amount of waste many of these businesses generated. She asked a few area catering companies if they would be interested in starting a green division.

They weren’t.

“It wasn’t part of their philosophy,” said Bradford, Green Gal’s owner/director of operations who hired Hernandez, a fellow Johnson &Wales graduate, in July to be the catering company’s executive chef.

So the Seekonk, Mass., native decided to start her own catering business based on a few guiding principles. “We want to minimize waste as much as possible, be sustainable and use local foods whenever possible,” Bradford said.

Eco-friendly catering, however, is a complicated business.

Government farm subsidies, global food production, politics and economic policies contribute to green catering’s high price tag. This increased financial cost, which is felt by both proprietor and customer, can dissuade even the “greenest” clients to go the traditional catering route.

Everything costs more, from disposable utensils to cuts of meat.

Hernandez estimated that it costs Green Gal Catering at least 25 percent more to operate than a conventional catering company. For example, he said, typical plastic spoons, forks and knives cost 1.5 cents to 2 cents apiece, while the compostable utensils made of cornstarch that Green Gal uses cost between 2 cents and 4 cents apiece. Those pennies add up, quickly.

It also costs the Westport, Mass.-based company more to use biodegradable cups, compostable trash bags and environmentally friendly cleaning supplies.

Green Gal Catering prepares for a recent event.But price differences are even more pronounced when it comes to food, as few catering functions feature wheatgrass, tofu and kale as the primary menu items. It’s all about local artisan cheeses, organic flours, grass-fed meats and sustainable seafood, and that quality comes at a price.

For most of its beef, Green Gal Catering buys from an all-natural co-op in Portland, Maine. Beef tenderloin from Wolfe’s Neck Farm costs $15 a pound. Hernandez said he could get the same choice cut of meat for $6.50 to $8.50 a pound, if he didn’t mind it coming from big industrial farms in Australia, Nebraska or Colorado where the cattle are pumped full of antibiotics and other chemicals.

Other all-natural meats, such as chicken, turkey, pork and lamb, are bought locally when possible, but sometimes Hernandez — a Providence resident with nearly 20 years of food-service experience, including the previous four as executive chef of an area country club — has to call upon vendors in upstate New York, New Jersey or Pennsylvania.

“You can’t change a bride and groom’s menu because the food isn’t readily available locally at the time,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a challenge to find local foods for an event. Last year, local farmers were still harvesting tomatoes on Columbus Day weekend. This year, because of the cold and wet summer, tomatoes were expensive and there was a more limited supply.”

Phyllo cups with cherry tomatoes.Green Gal Catering buys cheese from Providence-based Narragansett Creamery — “people like fresh mozzarella in the summer,” Hernandez said — and buys produce and dairy from local farms, such as Arruda Dairy and Lydon Family Tomatoes in Tiverton and Young Family Farm in Little Compton.

Bradford and Hernandez also host “five-mile dinners,” meaning everything served was obtained within five miles of the company’s Westport, Mass., kitchen. Their own-site venue can seat up to 45 people.

However, buying environmentally friendly supplies, encouraging vendors to limit their plastic use, avoiding the use of Styrofoam containers and preparing local foods are not the sole earth-friendly functions a catering business determined to be green must address.

There’s the matter of getting rid of the garbage.

Among the more egregious examples of waste Bradford witnessed during her time working for other catering companies were the “heaps” of food that were constantly thrown out with the plastic forks, bottles of water and paper napkins.

Legal requirements make it difficult to donate excess food, Bradford said, so Green Gal Catering feeds most of it to the four cows and four pigs that call Westport Rivers Vineyard & Winery home.

Bradford’s catering company rents the Long Acre House on the grounds of the family owned winery. There, the staff — there are 25 part-time employees on the payroll — separate garbage and waste into four different bins that are either emptied into the pig trough, the cow trough or the composting pile, or recycled.

Lemons, for example, are now fed to the pigs.

“The cows and pigs are only steps from the (Long Acre House), so they hear us coming with our buckets of food scraps,” said Hernandez, a 1992 graduate of Woonsocket High School. “Let me tell you, cows can run, man.”

The garbage the pigs and cows won’t eat or shouldn’t eat is taken down a rutty, dirt road to a compost heap that is hidden behind the winery’s grape vines.

When Bradford and Hernandez, the company’s only full-time employees, cater off-site functions, they do their best to collect as much garbage as possible. The winery’s four pigs, undoubtedly, appreciate those efforts.

“One person at a typical catering venue throws away four to five pounds of food,” said Hernandez, noting that he included food preparation waste, such broccoli stems and meat trimmings that the cows and/or pigs eat before any meal is served, into that figure. “People always take more food than they will eat.”

Factoring that in when he prepares meals, Hernandez said he cuts it “real close” when buying the ingredients, as it helps keep cost and waste down, but he also realizes “running out of food is bad for business.”