I am writing this week from the historic energy capital of the United States – Houston, Texas.  Texas is also the current wind energy capital of the country, and with over 4,300 megawatts of installed capacity, they exceed the runner-up, California, by nearly 2,000 megawatts.  I can’t resist the “everything is bigger in Texas” line.

The annual WINDPOWER Conference & Exhibition, hosted and organized by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), kicked off here this week (http://www.windpowerexpo.org/), and it once again shattered all previous records for attendees and exhibitors.  A colleague of mine who develops wind projects in the upper Midwest reminisced last night about the WINDPOWER conference in 1993, which attracted about 225 people. Another industry vet remembers the eight tabletop exhibits from 1989.  This year, the show floor is over a quarter mile long.  Over 770 exhibitors have filled the exhibition hall, and 12,000 attendees, up from 7,000 just last year, are here to confer and learn about this rapidly growing industry.

While it is tempting to think that the protective cocoon of air conditioning in early-June Houston kept me inside for most of yesterday, the tremendous displays on the exhibit floor are also quite an attraction.  Turbine manufacturers big and small have brought their technology for all to see, so you can walk inside a utility-scale nacelle (the school bus –sized housing for the gearbox at the top of a wind turbine), stand next to a pair of 70-meter-long wind turbine blades, or watch a residential scale roof-mounted system turn.

Community Energy played an important role in greening this conference.  We partnered with AWEA to provide green travel opportunities, so that all online registrants had the opportunity to purchase renewable energy credits (RECs) to offset the environmental impact of their car and flight travel to the conference.  Additionally, Community Energy donated RECs, sourced from Texas wind projects, to green the energy use at the George R. Brown Convention Center. If you’re also attending WINDPOWER this week, please feel free to drop by the IBERDROLA RENEWABLES booth, number 2335. We can tell you about how we aim to contribute to this white-hot growth, and send you home with some goodies.

As always, we want to hear from you. So please write to us at CommunityEnergy@newwindenergy.com.