Walking one morning in the fall of 2011 on Detroit’s east side, Dr. Paul Draus, professor of sociology at U-M Dearborn had a chance encounter that would change his career trajectory. Draus and his frequent collaborator, Dr. Juliette Roddy, were touring neighborhoods adjacent to the Recovery Park Project, an initiative they had been involved in. “Just going around the neighborhood, walking block-block-block, meeting people,” Draus recalls, when he came across a metalworking studio called C.A.N Art Handworks.

Inside the studio, Draus glimpsed several unique designs, including a wind turbine made from upcycled materials. On the front door to the studio, there was a sign posted with the owner’s name, Carlos Nielbock, and a number to reach him. Intrigued, Draus gave Nielbock a call.

Getting to know Nielbock, a master iron craftsman who emigrated to Detroit from Germany in 1984, Draus quickly learned that he had a grander idea for what the wind turbine, which is now patented as the “Detroit windmill,” could represent. The turbines could provide the cornerstone for what Nielbock imagined as a Green Energy Village.

The Green Energy Village, imagined as a collection of windmills and solar panels fashioned as avant-garde art pieces, could generate local, renewable energy, helping to alleviate the lack of equitable energy access faced by many Detroiters. At the same time, construction could employ community members to build, test, and install the panels. Further, deploying the Detroit windmills at scale across several locations, including Detroit’s famous Eastern Market district, could serve to beautify open public spaces across the city.

To Nielbock, designing a Green Energy Village also presents a chance to restore the image of Detroit as a cultural and architectural landmark. “What people don’t realize about Detroit is its unique design heritage,” he says. “Detroit was once commonly referred to as the ‘Paris of Midwest.’ It’s the only city in the U.S. designated as a UNESCO City of Design.”

But for as long as he can remember, that heritage and pride have been all but forgotten. “For years I would walk by the same buildings and would wonder why there was no activity.” The sense of pride the city and its residents had long felt had all but disappeared.

Assembling the project team

While Nielbock brought architectural and design expertise, Draus had access to research funding and relationships with U-M faculty who would provide valuable technical expertise. After being selected for a catalyst grant from the Graham Sustainability Institute in the summer of 2018, Draus and Neilbock set to work on assembling the research team for the catalyst grant project.

The group would need to install the windmills, test their energy efficiency, model the potential local energy benefits, and involve community members to incorporate their ideas into the project. The final team, which included two other U-M Dearborn faculty members: Dr. Juliette Roddy  and Dr. Wencong Su, an electrical engineer, had a broad and impressive set of skills, and a shared interest in renewable energy.

At its core, a community-driven project

Today, if you venture to the Eastern Market District, perhaps to stop by the famous farmer's market, you will see two hand-built "Detroit windmills." One windmill, also appended with a solar panel, sits on the public plaza outside of Shed 5 on Russell Street, and the other in the Market Garden urban farm at the intersection of Wilkins and Orleans Streets.

A central goal the team had for the project was to strengthen existing relationships with local community leaders and residents and solicit their input. To accomplish this, the team held several engagement sessions in 2018 and 2019 in which a diverse assortment of groups—from Ecoworks to Messiah Community Church and Quicken Loans—attended to provide input. Community leaders were especially interested in the potential return on investment of installing a Detroit windmill at their sites, Draus recalls.

In addition to installing the two windmills, the researchers completed an analysis of the windmills’ energy efficiency and produced a model of how much power could be generated under optimal and suboptimal conditions. The model demonstrates that this concept has the potential for large-scale energy generation—crucial work that paves the way toward realizing the vision of the GEV.

Progress toward realizing the Green Energy Village

Demonstrating promise for the many benefits construction of a Green Energy Village could provide, in addition to the catalyst grant project work, Nielbock worked with a class of high school students participating in a EcoWorks summer program called Youth Energy Squad. Over multiple sessions, Nielbock taught the students how to construct a windmill, which was installed and is now operating in Hope Park on Detroit's West Side. 

As far as the timeline for realizing the vision, “It’s important to understand that the catalyst project was never intended to develop the Green Energy Village. The goal was to establish a platform for scalability and integrated assessment. Eventually, we want to pitch a larger funder to do an installation of not just one or two wind turbines, but perhaps one hundred or more. To get there, though, we still need to show a proof of concept of the energy production capability," says Draus.

If the Green Energy Village does come together in this way, it could further deliver affordable, localized, sustainable energy production, enhanced grid resilience, and equitable economic development.