Sandbanks Provincial Park could soon be off the electrical grid, using the innovative technology of an Ottawa based company to harvest wind energy.

Ontario Parks and the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) recently signed a six-year agreement with Magenn Power Inc. to test the Magenn Air Rotor System (MARS) near one of its campgrounds.

Unlike traditional turbines, MARS is a large helium filled cylinder, tethered to a winch allowing it to be raised up to 300 metres to capture consistent wind currents blowing in the area.

Officials from Magenn and Ontario Parks were on hand Thursday to answer questions and present the project to the public as part of the environmental assessment procedure.

Park Superintendent Don Bucholtz said the installation could be in place by next fall and the initial application could supply up to 10 per cent of the park's electricity requirements.

"Ontario Parks is always looking for green initiatives and this certainly would provide a much cleaner and less expensive way to supply electricity to the park," he said. "(Magenn) is working on a number of prototypes and this will give them the opportunity to do that in a real-life environment."

Bucholtz said the first MARS unit to be installed is to be 10 kw with plans to upgrade it to a 100-kw unit over the course of the agreement, which would be large enough to meet all electrical requirements for the park.

"A lot of people think it's just a beach and we don't need much power but we have to provide electricity to campsites, pumps for our septic system, hot water, comfort stations and our administrative facilities," he said. "The requirements are much greater than people realize and if we can produce enough energy to run the park, that will represent significant savings, not to mention benefiting the environment."

Under provincial legislation for the MNR, the turbine cannot be used to produce more electricity than is required to supply the facility.

Electricity will be transferred to a nearby Ontario Hydro grid and then supplied back to the park.

The MARS will be installed on a 29-hectare site near the Woodlands campground.

Magenn president Pierre Rivard said the application at Sandbanks is just the beginning for what he said are "endless opportunities."

Rivard said the balloon-like turbines are much less obtrusive than typical anchored applications.

"There really are three distinct advantages to the MARS units when your talking about their impact on the surrounding area and one of the key features is the altitude element because at full height they really do appear to be much smaller," he said. "Also, because they can be launched up to (300 metres) the noise isn't an issue.

"The third advantage is they don't have the same impact on birds and bats as traditional windmills. The height can be adjusted to keep it out of the migratory paths and even if a bird hits it, it's made mostly from soft fabric and the bird will just bounce off and continue on its way."

MARS was featured on the Discovery Channel earlier this month in the United States after 80 hours of footage was filmed in North Carolina for a 60-minute episode. The show will air in Canada in January.

There are currently six windmill developments on the books at the municipality's planning office with more expected. Rivard said MARS simply provides an alternative for some of the traditional turbine applications.

"We're finding new uses every day for this, for places like remote mining sites, offshore drilling sites, First Nations territories and disaster areas, he said. "A lot of these companies are paying a lot of money to bring diesel in and Donna Cansfield, the Minister of Natural Resources told me the cost of delivering electricity to some of the remote First Nations locations is just staggering. They can also be moved around very easily and taken down and redeployed very quickly so you could take them into a disaster area like New Orleans and help restore the power very quickly."

Mayor Leo Finnegan stopped in at the open house calling the concept "interesting."

"Wind turbines are a very big issue here these days and, although this is the first I've really seen of this, it's very interesting and certainly is much different from the other projects we've seen," he said. "I don't know if this could replace the other turbines but it certainly looks like a good fit for the Sandbanks."