Supported by Appalachian State University’s Department of Technology, North Carolina State Energy Office, and the US Department of Energy, SWI is nationally recognized in the small wind industry for the quality of both its efforts and results. Even more impressive is its focus on outreach.

The SWI test and demonstration site on Beech Mountain in western North Carolina features the latest small wind turbine systems suitable for residential, farm, or business applications. The facility is open to the public and provides a unique a hands-on training experience with educational tours, workshops, and seminars.

But their outreach is not just local and site based. Performance assessment data on the small systems they test is provided to any interested party that requests it. This includes utility companies, manufacturers, landowners, state agencies, the press, and anyone else.

The Appalachian State University’s focus on wind energy and it’s Small Wind Initiative are both excellent resources for small wind projects.

Click here to visit this excellent Small Wind Initiative resource on line.

The Wind Power Law Blog is purely educational. It is not legal advice. But for doing your homework on New York State wind projects, this blog site is an exceptional resource.

The site is maintained by Clifford C. Rohde, an attorney with the Albany, N.Y. law firm of Cooper Erving & Savage LLP. Rohde works closely with firm partner Scott P. Olson. A quick scan of the Wind Power Law Blog “About” page details the expertise they bring to the wind power arena in New York State.

Rohde’s practice with the firm focuses on public utility land use and zoning issues. He has substantial regulatory, compliance, corporate, communications and policy advocacy experience, at both the federal and state level.

Scott P. Olson…heads the firm’s land use and zoning practice…Olson possesses more than a decade of first-hand experience with complicated and controversial real estate development issues, with particular emphasis on securing local right-to-build and use and zoning permits and approvals and compliance with the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) and its implementing regulations.

If you are working on a wind project in New York State, I urge you to do some deep research on the Wind Power Law Blog website — early and often.

If your project is not in the Empire State, you can still learn much from this excellent resource. Although the emphasis is on wind energy development in New York, there is a good deal of great information on a whole menu of related issues to wind power development in general.

Click here to go to Wind Power Law Blog, or click on their link in my blogroll.

The new Lyme zoning law prevents any wind turbines (commercial and residential) within 4,500 feet of the Lake Ontario waterfront and the villages of Three Mile Bay and Chaumont. In response, Voters for Wind a local wind advocacy group filed a State Supreme Court lawsuit against the Town of Lyme. The lawsuit wants to have the restrictive zoning law nullified stating that the super-majority vote required was not achieved and the zoning ordinance as written is arbitrary and capricious.

Sounds like your typical battle – wind farmers fighting the NIMBY pack – but not in this case. The heart of the issue here is a real concern that this law is too restrictive. That it essentially eliminates the possibility of wind development of any kind, at any time, in the Town of Lyme on a purely political basis.

“I feel they have their own agenda. They have been very anti wind from the beginning,” said Voters for Wind vice president Dawn Munk.

With all the recent hoopla in the media pointing to huge wind power projects being planned or developed all over the country now, it is important to remember that there are MANY battles over wind power still taking place.

If you are a David battling Goliath. if you are pushing a wind project with out the benefit of power, money or prestige. If your wind power project is also under fire, check out the Wind Power Community Organizing handbook and the rest of this website.

There are strategies and tactics that can help you move your project forward. Click here and then use the arrows on the Lulu toolbar to see the Table of Contents, sample pages of copy and the index of the Wind Power Handbook.

And, Click here for more on the Lyme case study in progress.

Southern Co., which owns Georgia Power, prefers coal and nuclear power. But with approval from the US Department of the Interior the utility will move forward with leasing three plots off Tybee Island to further test the feasibility of a wind farm. But a sea of regulatory and environmental issues, federal permits and lack of tax credits may scuttle the Georgia off-shore wind farm project before it sails too far.

Even though Georgia Tech researchers recently completed a study of wind energy off the Tybee and Jekyll islands, the Southern Co., wind study alone is expected to cost $3 million and take nearly three years to complete. Southern Co., spokesperson Liz Philpot notes that a pilot project wouldn’t even get started for at least five years.

For wind activists throughout the US, the Georgia Jekyll and Tybee islands off-shore wind project should be on our watch lists.

Is Southern Co., dragging their feet on wind power or really being swamped by the enormity of regulations they say are circling their project? Would tax breaks and federal mandates to use renewable energy spur this project forward as some suggest or is this just another set of foggy excuses for drowning a not-all-that-desirable wind project and then blaming the government?

To keep an eye on this very important Southern US off-shore project, click here first for the rest of this story, and then get involved to help push this one forward by checking in with the Georgia Wind Working Group to see how you can help.

The Cape Wind project plans to place 130 turbines in Nantucket Sound, south of Cape Cod. An untiring handful of grassroots organizers have waged a mighty battle with Cape Cod property owners, heiresses, billionaires, well-funded and well-organized opposition lobbying, and the likes of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Senator Edward M. Kennedy. But, David may yet defeat these Goliaths. In a few months The Cape Wind project expects to get authorization to begin construction.

The incredible case history of the early days of this project is documented in the book Cape Wind by Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb. It is a classic case study of how even the most powerful resistance can be overcome with dogged research (doing your homework!), developing a wide network of supporters and allies, and frankly (when dealing with a whole gaggle of the rich and VERY powerful) – a whole lot of money.

There is much to be learned from the Cape Wind project. It is important to note here that the size of this project and the wealth of the resistors made this battle an expensive one. But aside from the costs unique to this particular project, the strategies and tactics used by these grassroots activists have some major lessons for all wind activists and advocates.

Click here for an update on the Cape Wind project and on the trends in US off-shore wind power projects in general.

For information on the evolution of what started out as a grassroots campaign and is now a major agenda, visit the Clean Power Now website.

Wind Project Community Organizing: A Handbook for Community Organizers, Activists and Project Managers is a concise, step-by-step guide that can help you learn how to approach every individual related to your project armed with the right information, the best arguments, a Win-Win mind set, and your best feet forward.

Using the easy to understand approach detailed in this handbook, you will learn how to:

• identify your whole network of key supporters, resistors, gatekeepers, allies
• understand and use the Big Picture
• dissect issues raised against your project and determine how to respond
• prepare yourself with strategies and tactics to help make your project successful

This handbook will help you to find the “Win-Win Sweet Spot” among diverse constituents that can lead to success on your wind project. Take a look here for more information.

Click here to go to the book on line then click on the arrows on the tool bar to see sample pages, table of contents and the back of the book index.

“The Delaware Business Ledger published an interview with Delmarva Power president Gary Stockbridge…(The latest) novel argument from Stockbridge:

Many people believe that if Bluewater is built, Indian River (coal-fired plant in Sussex County) will be closed.

I don’t know the basis for this assertion, but you haven’t heard it from me or any of the top wind power advocates in Delaware. Another day, another straw man argument from Mr. Stockbridge.”

To read more click here for Tommy Wonk’s take on this unfolding case study.

This report does not paint wind with silver bullet predictions. It is a fair assessment of the steps necessary and the challenges to expect in order for wind power to generate that 20% of U. S. electricity.

As you might expect, for example, NIMBY will no doubt continue to exert a significant challenge as projects spread across the landscape. And you can bet your bippy that resistors will use items in this report whenever they can to sway public opinion against your project based on issues listed on this site, and certainly more to follow.

With no doubt, there is a tough mountain to climb. Yet knowing now what to realistically expect as we make that climb can help keep the goal in focus no matter how energetic the effort or disheartening the response. And, being forewarned on what to expect can help both the public and wind advocates alike avoid becoming disenchanted with wind energy’s promise in the U. S. energy portfolio.

For an interesting and funny assessment on reading the DOE report in full, David Pace points you (by chapter and page) to some key items of interest in his “Want 20 Percent Wind Power by 2030, Get to Work!” available here.

And for the full report, click here.

Rock Port’s Loess Hills Wind Farm was built by the Wind Capital Group, and employed 500 workers from 20 states for about a year. Its four 1.25 MW wind turbines will generate 16 gigawatt hours (16 million kilowatt hours) of electricity annually. Since Rock Port’s energy needs are quite a bit less than that, the excess power will be purchased by Missouri Public Utility Alliance, the local electric company.

Rock Port, Missouri, is about half-way between St. Joseph, Missouri and Omaha, Nebraska. Located in rolling agricultural country, the city is home to some 1,400 residents. “Small town” you might say, no wonder they got together to get the place 100% wind powered. If that were the case then, why are there not hundreds of RockPorts 100% powered by wind all over the United States?

What makes Rock Port special? To be honest, several factors made this smaller scale project possible. The city has a bluff within the city limits with good resources, John Deere’s Wind Energy is financing the project, and Rock Port is not that far from the power grid. But if it weren’t for Eric Chamberlain – one person with an idea and the drive to make it happen – Rock Port would likely still be just another sleepy “show me” town.

Click here for Rock Port’s project announcement.

Click here for the Rock Port city website.

“If someone is going to be making money off my land, it should be me–not some power company, and especially not an Australian or Spanish company,” adds Tom Arends a Minwind member and a semi-retired grain and hog farmer.

“We must find ways to keep more of these wind-energy dollars within our state and within the Midwest–and we need to collaborate to make it happen,” says Willers. And collaborate they did!

Most other wind farms in the U. S. are owned by private power companies. Minwind Energy is owned by the 300 farmers and community members who came together to develop this wind farm.

The Minwind Energy story is less about gathering allies to support an agenda than it is a case study of the power of a commited community, although as I dig deeper I am sure I will find a lot more about how that community actually came together. If you are doing your homework on whether to own a turbine or to lease your land for someone else’s turbine, you really should read the rest of this story.

There was virtually no opposition to the Minwind project. “That is the beauty of a community project. When neighbors all own part of it and will get a return from it, it really makes a difference,” says Willers.