WindPower 2008 Blows Through Houston

Four packed days of the American Wind Energy Association’s annual conference and trade show are wrapping up today in Texas. Windpower 2008 drew about 800 exhibitors to its trade show, more than 12,000 attendees and over 300 speakers, and was able to provide over 50 discrete sessions on different aspects of the wind energy: where it is now, innovations, and what’s coming.

This last actually provided much of the structure for the conference, following up on the DOE’s release about a month ago of a report stating a goal of achieving 20% of our electricity from wind power in under thirty years. “20% Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy’s Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply” considered how we could achieve this goal without adding new wind capabilities, and how we could achieve it with growth in the wind energy sector. Understandably, it lent a bit of drama to Windpower 2008.

Maria Surma Manka, who maintains a blog about renewable energy policy (among other things), wrote a guest post for Jetson Green highlighting some of the new small wind designs on display at Windpower 2008, and I recommend taking a look. The photos aren’t professional but give a pretty good idea of the kind of innovations coming to market. I think an “iWind” generation of turbines would go over pretty well in the US; the more styles that come to production, the greater the choice to the consumer, and the stiffer the competition to increase efficiency and streamline production techniques.