The Ontario Sustainable Energy Association (OSEA) hosted it's first Community Power Conference on November 15-16 with international speakers, 450 conference delegates, and over 2,500 trade show attendees. The conference was chaired by Dr. David Suzuki, the well-known scientist, host of The Nature of Things, and author of many books including the recent The Big Picture: Reflections on Science, Humanity, and a Quickly Changing Planet.

Detroit, MI - One of the most significant barriers to the growth in deployment of mid-size turbines in the United States is the lack of turbines; there are few mid-size turbines on the market today. To fill this technology gap, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will launch a Mid-size Wind Turbine Development Project in FY 2010 to facilitate the development and commercialization of mid-size wind turbines.

The Office of Energy Security (OES) at the Minnesota Department of Commerce requests proposals for emerging renewable energy industries' projects.

Detroit, MI - Held in conjunction with the AWEA Small and Community Wind Conference & Exhibition, this workshop will attract representatives from a diverse range of markets to discuss the wind industry's need to strengthen and expand its national supply chain to keep up with growing demand for wind energy and to increase domestic manufacturing of wind turbines and their components for homes and farms, and utility grade wind projects.

Berkeley, California - The U.S. Department of Energy released its “2008 Wind Technologies Market Report.” This report, authored primarily by Ryan Wiser and Mark Bolinger of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, provides a comprehensive overview of trends in the U.S. wind power market, with a particular focus on 2008. For the fourth consecutive year, the U.S. was home to the fastest-growing wind power market in the world in 2008. Specifically, U.S. wind power capacity additions increased by 60 percent in 2008, representing a $16 billion investment in new wind projects.

Minneapolis, MN - The AWEA Wind Resource and Project Energy Assessment Workshop, September 30-October 1, will take a technical look at various topics from a comparison of modeling techniques and examining sources of uncertainty, to post construction topics that focus on turbine performance and operational assessments.

In 2008 U.S. wind energy grew by over 8,500 megawatts (MW) of new wind power capacity, increasing the nation’s cumulative total by 50% to over 25,300 MW, pushing the U.S. above Germany as the country with the largest amount of wind power capacity installed, according to a new report from the American Wind Energy Assocation (AWEA).

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

President Obama signs American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Now that Congress has passed and President Obama has signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, how will this help to stimulate Community Wind projects? According to Denise Bode, American Wind Energy Association CEO, "the stimulus bill contains a number of provisions aimed at helping our industry continue the very strong growth in new installations and new jobs we have seen over the past few years."

Appleton, WI

This state-level seminar will focus on supply chain challenges and opportunities in the state of Wisconsin for companies looking to get involved in the supply of components and services to the wind energy industry.

The U.S. Department of Energy released its Annual Report on U.S. Wind Power Installation, Cost, and Performance Trends: 2007 inconjunction with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. According to the report, the U.S. had the fastest-growing wind power market in the world for the third consecutive year in 2007. Go wind!