At exactly 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning, a beam of sunshine peeked out from behind a cloud to envelop a treeless hill in Aquinnah in golden light. A small crowd, bundled up against the 15-degree chill, had gathered at the town landfill, but at the morning’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for Aquinnah’s first-ever solar array project, the sun was the guest of honor.

“This is really a great occasion for all of us to be here today,” Aquinnah town administrator Adam Wilson told the onlookers, shortly before selectman Jim Newman snipped the official red ribbon.

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission last week approved a wind energy plan that will regulate wind turbine development on Island land and waters.

The commission will use the plan as guidance when reviewing turbines. The commission plans to review the plan again in five years, though members emphasized that the plan could be changed at any time.

Don Ogden is correct in response to my letter when he wrote that conservation would “go much toward reducing CO2 emissions.”

While searching the depths of the sea floor for marine life, Jesse Ausubel realized something else. Out of the sea floor sediments leaked methane, a natural gas, which mussels, tube worms and other creatures thrived on.

“These animals were living off what we call methane seeps,” said Mr. Ausubel. “That was one clue that methane is more abundant under the sea floor than we had believed.”

A note to Gazette readers and letter writer Larry Lewis. If more attention was given to energy conservation and efficiency in this wasteful society we live in, the need for problematical wind turbines would be lessened. Coincidentally, saving energy rather than making even more, will go much toward reducing CO2 emissions and addressing the climate crisis. A major contributor to climate change is the epidemic of carelessness, especially in the United States, regarding the use of energy already being generated.

The U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) are holding a public information meeting in New Bedford today, July 17, about proposed offshore wind energy projects in the Massachusetts-Rhode Island wind energy area.

West Tisbury is on the road to becoming a Green Community.

The town is in the final stages of creating a plan to reduce energy use by 20 per cent over the next five years, with the goal of becoming designated a Green Community under the 2008 state Green Communities Act. The designation allows towns to receive special grant funding for energy efficiency studies and improvements to town buildings, among other things.

The town of Tisbury is pursuing the same designation.

Energy Stardom

Squash Meadow Construction Inc. (squashmeadow.com) recently completed another Energy Star qualified home. The home, owned by Jennifer Slosberg and located on Beech Road in Chilmark, underwent rigorous inspections in order to qualify as an Energy Star home. Squash Meadow Construction Inc., an Energy Star partner and LEED AP (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional) specializes in affordable green building.

The Edgartown Wastewater Facility has been named the recipient of the New England Water Environment Association’s 2011 Energy Management Achievement Award for its efforts to reduce energy use in the treatment of wastewater.

Facilities manager Joe Alosso has utilized more than $300,000 in state and federal grants to fund cost-saving improvements at the treatment plant.

Five years ago Mitchell Posin and Clarissa Allen had a vision: of sheep grazing under a windmill that powered their Chilmark farm. It was a vision of a working farm functioning with clean energy, from the grass the sheep ate to the compost tea they helped produce to the wind that spun the turbine.

On Monday morning that vision became reality when a 149-foot turbine was installed at the farm, the largest turbine to date on the Island.

Once it is fully operational, the windmill will produce 125,000 kilowatt hours per year.