Pieces of giant wind turbine to be erected at Varian Seminconductors being unloaded from barge at Cruiseport Gloucester in October before being moved to the company's property in Blackburn Industrial Park.

The city and private developers are looking to wind to save money and to cut down on burning fossil fuel. Here, blades of giant wind turbine lay on a barge in Gloucester Harbor.

Gloucester has become the first community in the region with three turbines, taking advantage of an average daily wind speed of nearly 16 miles per hour.

Gloucester is now the only city in the state producing the equivalent of its municipal electric load/use with wind turbines. Here, a worker passes base section of giant wind turbine at Cruiseport Gloucester.

Sophia Lane, 14, signs a blade of the wind turbine as her friend Cassandra McComiskey, 14, looks on. The pair of 2 megawatt turbines are projected to provide enough power to run all city municipal buildings and save the city $11 million dollars over their 25-year service life.

Mayor Caroline Kirk [pictured] was one of more than 2,000 people who signed the blades that now spin 400 feet in the air.

Here, electricician's apprentice Brian DiCaienzo works with copper cables at the base of a wind turbine.

In this cash-strapped city, where water rates are among the highest in the nation and proposed capital improvement projects top over $200 million, the idea of saving around $11 million over the next 25 years by buying discounted energy has been widely endorsed.

Last year, the city signed a 25-year electrical purchase plan with Equity Industrial Partners.The plan called for Equity to build two 2-megawatt, $12 million turbines at Gloucester Engineering, near the Varian site in the Blackburn Industrial Park.

Janice Lloyd was one of the Gloucester residents to sign a blade of the wind turbine that will be erected at Gloucester Engineeering in the Blackburn Industrial park. The pair of 2 megawatt turbines are projected to provide enough power to run all city municipal buildings, and save the city $11million dollars over their 25 year service life. JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE (Regional, Marcia Dick)

Darrell Perkins and his neice Grace Perkins examine the base of one of the blades of a wind turbine.

Gloucester has been designated as one of the state’s Green Communities, and is in the process of trying to fill up much of its long-vacant harborfront lots with new maritime businesses, that would include everyone from ocean researchers and scientists to “green” boatbuilders.