G.E.T. Staff
Culemborg is a small city in the central area of the Netherlands with a population of about 27,000. When a number of the people of the city decided to put up a wind turbine late last summer, they decided on a novel approach. They did not want to pay full price, so they went looking for a used turbine of 2.0 megawatts.
Used turbines are not easy to find, because people who put such equipment up are usually happy with it and do not want to sell. A company called Windcentrale, however, specializes in facilitating such purchases and was able to locate the right machine for the city.
The most remarkable thing about this particular transaction was not the fact that a used wind turbine was purchased. It was how the purchase was accomplished. The turbine was crowd-funded. That, however, is still not the most remarkable part of the purchase.
Buying and installing the wind turbine for Culemborg required an expense of € 1,329,600 million, which is about $1,820,000 million. At €200 per share, 6648 shares had to be sold. This brings us to the remarkable part. The entire crowdfunding operation was completed, with all shares sold, in just 13 hours.
Now that the wind turbine is in place, people are already starting to plan for another.
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