Dundalk Institute of Technology has become the first third-level campus in Ireland to have a large commercial wind turbine on campus.
When fully commissioned next month, the turbine will be able to produce 80 per cent of the electricity requirements of the college, excluding heating.
"This is also the first wind turbine in the Republic to be used to make electricity that will be used locally and not fed into the national grid," according to Prof Larry Staudt of the centre for renewable energy at the Co Louth college.
"Every unit of electricity we generate is one we don't have to buy at the retail rate. At that rate the turbine will pay for itself in around nine years."
The final pieces of the structure were put into place yesterday by engineers. The tower is 60m high, half the size of the Spire in Dublin, while the rotor is 52m in diameter.
Each of the three blades is 26m long and, depending on the wind, it can produce up to 850 kilowatts of power.
It has cost about €1 million and a grant of €427,000 was given by Sustainable Energy Ireland.
The tower is made from steel, the blades are made from fibre-glass reinforced plastic and the project has produced significant interest from other colleges as well as industry.
"One of the research projects we are working on is a feasibility study for Xerox for the same kind of wind turbine," Prof Staudt says. He believes that Ireland's renewable energy programme to date has been limited, "and that would be a polite way to put it", despite us having huge resources in wind, bio-mass and wave.
He attributes this not to a lack of money "but a lack of vision". This is changing he believes because of high fuel prices which are making it apparent to everyone that wind energy has great potential.
Prof Staudt says wind is easily the cheapest electricity to produce at the moment and other forms of electricity will easily cost twice what they do now by 2020.
The ESB national grid is currently able to accept up to 1,100 megawatts of power from such renewable sources but already there are 3,000 megawatts ready to be installed (to the grid).
Prof Staudt says storage of wind power needs to be addressed so it can achieve a higher penetration of the grid. "The technical limit for wind generated electricity on the grid is 100 per cent."
Meanwhile the centre for renewable energy in the Dundalk college is seeking planning permission to install a flow battery at the bottom of the turbine tower to control and manage the storage of energy from the turbine.