WIND ENERGY’S TEAM OF RIVALS

Reporting from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Fall Symposium, Accelerating Wind Energy Growth Towards 20%:

Financing, not surprisingly, is what people in the wind industry are talking about. Financing is tougher than it has been in a long time. Turbines are costly. More transmission will soon be needed. Solar power plants are becoming price competitive.

The wind industry – which has not become the nation’s 2nd-biggest supplier of new electricity generation by desultory responses to business challenges – is busy plotting new business models.

What’s the magic trick to get money flowing when credit is frozen? It's not about magic tricks, it's about good ideas.

If investment banks – for lack of profits – no longer have use for production tax credits, maybe Google or Microsoft does.

If developers can no longer afford lease payments to landowners, maybe landowners will trade the use of their land for a piece of the action.

If mega-financing is no longer available, maybe utilities or communities – anticipating the coming emissions-constrained future – want to buy in.

If Boone Pickens-style, RANCH-sized installations are too expensive to build, maybe the more modest, wind FARM model is a more timely choice.

While it figures out how to best cope with today’s restricted economy, the wind energy industry – driven by a decade of success and a population of entrepreneurs who know today’s hesitation will only make tomorrow’s explosion bigger – goes on making plans to provide the U.S. with 20% of its power by 2030.

Wind has not allowed its astonishing growth over the past decade to prevent it from demonstrating admirable integrity in its business practices and it has no intention of allowing the present slowdown or the coming decades of expansion to do so either.

The industry’s controversies, things like avian and bat population impacts and wildlife habitat impacts and human community objections to noise and aesthetics, are mostly the result of mistakes in properly siting wind installations.

In today’s tight money world, picking the proper site in the earliest stage of planning could easily make the difference betweeen whether a developer ends up with a wind installation and an unfulfilled purpose.

In anticipation of bettering site choice, AWEA created the Wind Energy Siting Handbook to establish “best practices” for locating turbines.

There remain the questions of (1) unique project problems and (2) unknowable objections, especially in crucial ecological, wildlife and habitat considerations.

To be prepared for such environmental challenges and thereby make it possible for wind power to move unimpeded to the unprecedented capacity levels it will need to achieve 20% by 2030, the industry has pro-actively established The American Wind Wildlife Institute (AWWI).

Completely independent of AWEA and the industry, AWWI is a coalition of governmental, non-governmental and industry representatives tasked to anticipate controversy before it happens and work out solutions.

It is a tribute to the seriousness of AWWI's purpose that some of the most committed environmental groups (National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club) and some of the most powerful wind industry companies (BP Wind Energy, Babcock & Brown, enXco, E.ON, GE Energy, Iberdrola Renewable Energies USA, NRG Systems, Vestas Americas) are at the table.

The wind industry’s idea: To forge hard-nosed environmentalists, governmental enforcers and serious business people into a team of rivals committed to setting guidelines, solving problems and building the New Energy the U.S. so very much wants and every day more urgently needs.

click to enlarge

Environmental, Conservation and Wind Energy Groups Launch New Institute
19 November 2008 (North American Windpower)

WHO
The American Wind Wildlife Institute (AWWI); The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA); 7 nonprofit founding organizations (Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, Environmental Defense Fund, National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists); 13 wind industry business founding members (AES Wind Energy, BP Wind Energy, Babcock & Brown, enXco, Clipper Windpower, E.ON, GE Energy, Horizon Wind Energy, Iberdrola Renewable Energies USA, Nordic Windpower, NRG Systems, Renewable Energy Systems Americas, Vestas Americas)

WHAT
The American Wind Wildlife Institute will facilitate rapid yet responsible wind power development while protecting wildlife and wildlife habitat.

AWWI's objective is to facilitate this projected growth. (click to enlarge)

WHEN
- AWWI has just launched after extensive planning.
- First 2 years: AWWI will have an operating budget of $3 million.
- The Fall Symposium is November 19-21.

WHERE
- The 7 nonprofit founding AWWI member organizations have members in all 50 states and represent 4.3+ million nationwide.
- Siting is all about where turbines are placed. Effectively sited, they create only New Energy; Badly sited, they generate trouble.
- The Fall Symposium is in Palm Desert, CA.

WHY
- AWWI focuses: (1) Research, (2) sustainable development, (3) biodiversity protection, and (4) educating the public on wildlife - wind dynamics.
- AWWI will establish best practices in areas such as mapping, mitigation and public education on siting and habitat protection.
- Wind energy is crucial in the fight against global climate change.
- AWWI intends to make the wind industry an example for all new Energy development by proactively addressing potential impacts and facilitating widespread wind deployment.

Best siting practices mean best potential of success. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
Jan Blittersdorf, CEO, NRG Systems and vice chair, AWWI: "Addressing global climate change demands a higher level of collaboration between different sectors and interests...Development of clean, renewable wind energy and wildlife protection need not be mutually exclusive goals."