Issue link: http://www.insightdigital.biz/i/147468
insight on By Connie Fellman ENERGY Winds of change Companies get proactive on energy — and see green as a result w w w. i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m C O U R T E S Y M E N A S H A PA C K A G I N G L L C T he winds of change are clearly visible to anyone traveling on Highway 41 through the Fox Cities. "We installed five 20-kilowatt wind turbines to supply power to our corporate office and adjoining plant here in Neenah," says Morgan Wiswall, purchasing initiatives and sustainability manager at Menasha Packaging. The turbines generate about 150,000 kW hours annually, enough to provide electricity for lights, computers and office equipment for the home office facility's 115 employees. Erected in 2010, Menasha Packaging's five turbines remain the largest wind installation at a business in Northeast Wisconsin. "Sustainability is one of our four key strategies, so a big part of what we're doing is around energy, carbon emission reductions, and this is certainly a component of that," says Wiswall. The wind turbines were manufactured by another Northeast Wisconsin business, Renewegy LLC of Oshkosh. Renewegy specializes in making turbines for more urban settings, rather than the large wind towers that are part of utility-scale wind farms and are about four times larger than Menasha Packaging's 115feet tall turbines. You don't have to travel far to see another Northeast Wisconsin record holder in sustainable energy initiatives. Just keep going north on Highway 41 for about 30 miles. When Wind turbines outside Menasha Packaging's home office in Neenah provide power for 115 workers at the facility. you get to KI in Green Bay, look up. The largest solar photovoltaic (PV) system in the region sits atop KI's design and development facility, about a block away from the corporate headquarters. It is composed of 480 PV solar panels, covering about 22,820 square feet of rooftop space, which convert sunlight into electricity. The array of solar panels, installed last January, produces approximately 152,640 kilowatt hours (kWh) of clean energy annually while displacing 108 metric tons of carbon [continued] » A u g u s t 2 013 • Insight | 29