Windustry

Programs: Windustry was awarded a competitive 3-year contract from the us department of energy and national renewable energy lab for a regional wind resource center for the midwest region. The midwest wind energy center (mwec) serves the following states: illinois, indiana, iowa, michigan, minnesota, missouri, eastern montana, north dakota, ohio, south dakota, and wisconsin. The midwest wind energy center's main organizer is windustry. Other key partners are the iowa wind energy association and tom wind, wind utility consulting. Windustry has convened an advisory board to help kick-off this new initiative and we have organized several meetings. With 17 members, we have at least one representative from each of the states in the region. We have identified strategies and priority activities for mwec program work. We have created a webinar series and are planning several more. Mwec is planning wind energy research, outreach and education topic areas and creating more opportunities for key stakeholders and decision makers in the midwest region. Also, we have create a new website for mwec and an online wind library for information wind resources that may be of particular interest to the midwest market. Windustry created a new online resource covering business models for community wind. This was a piece that we researched and explored, over the past couple of years, from several angles over the last few years. Windustry explored working with new stakeholders and looked very closely at the business models the solar markets are using and popularizing. Windustry worked closely with the mn clean energy and jobs campaign to keep good information available on distributed wind and co-chaired the distributed generation table.