Mount Saint Mary’s Abbey Turbine

The Mount Saint Mary’s Abbey located in Wrentham is a monastery of 50 Roman Catholic contemplative women who support themselves by making and selling candy. The sisters were incurring high electric bills for the candy production facility and were looking for a green energy source that would allow them to live out their monastic values – concern for all of creation and using the gifts of creation – while also saving on electricity costs. They elected to build a 100 kilowatt wind turbine manufactured by the New England-based company, Northern Power Systems.

 

 The system was constructed in the fall of 2009 and was online by December 23 the same year when the nuns gathered outside on a cold morning to watch the commissioning of their turbine. Former Abbess Agnes Day did not herself play a role in the project, but says that she still “admire[s] the beauty of the wind turbine and enjoy[s] the power as warmth, light and other things that depend on electricity.”