St. Clair County Community College on Tuesday, April 13, received a new wind and solar demonstration platform for educating students and the community.

The equipment, called a PowerCube, is a mobile platform that features a wind turbine and solar panels. SC4 is the first college or university in the country to use the equipment.

The platform is designed as a mobile research laboratory that supports a number of educational programs. SC4 students will use the equipment to study the efficiency of wind and solar power generation.

• A wind turbine.
• Two types of solar panels.
• Solar controllers.
• Batteries.
• A complete wireless weather station to monitor wind, sun, temperature, pressure, precipitation and other parameters.

The platform can be towed to any location and deployed in less than a minute, allowing students to easily collect and evaluate data. The college also will display the platform at community events throughout the year.

This project was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.