You can find the largest wind turbine in Mahoning County standing tall over Myers Equipment Corp. on Route 224 outside of Canfield.
"Everything we do has to be done efficiently and wind energy seems to be one of the most efficient ways of producing energy we can think of today," said owner Craig Myers.
The transportation supplier sits 7 miles east of the Western Reserve Schools, which installed three smaller wind turbines two years ago.
"When we found they had ample air and wind current to support the wind turbine, so we felt we would too," Myers said.
The 50-kilowatt turbine sits 140 feet off the ground with the blades reaching out an additional 35 feet.
"It's so high there's no trees or anything to cause turbulence for this turbine so we expect it to do very well," said Greg Courtney of Wind Turbines of Ohio.
He expects the structure to generate up to 75 percent of Myers Equipment's electricity.
"We know the wind resource is somewhere between 12 and 15 miles an hour on an average annual wind speed. It's less in the summer, more through the fall and winter," Courtney said.
Courtney said they take extra precaution to keep the nearly 10,000-pound turbine in place.
"There are 12 bolts holding that nacelle to the tower. Each one is an inch around. They're torqued at 618 feet pounds. So there's no way that this thing could come down," he said.
But he does hope it brings down the cost of electricity for Craig Myers and his family's business.
"The movement is going to continue to move forward particularly as utility rates increase and other things happen to cause the cost of electricity to go up. Then these types of installations will be more practical and affordable for companies like Myers," Courtney said.
