"it's a think piece about a mid-level band struggling with their own limitations in the harsh face of stardom." - Lester Bangs in Almost Famous

As I wandered through the labyrinth of displays and power suits at AWEA Windpower 2009, I couldn't help but think of that quote from Almost Famous. It just seems so applicable to the current status of the wind industry.

Last week over 20,000 wind enthusiasts descended upon Chicago to inspect the latest wares of the trade. I was in the swirl and sucked up as much insight and knowledge as I could. This piece will break from the convention of previous posts and will be more of a report on the wind industry. Enjoy.

The Beck family rumbled into Vermont in the wee hours of Saturday morning. With around 30 hours back in the bubble and a host of home issues to deal with, I opted to play wiffle ball with the lads. In retrospect, I probably could have made better use of my time at home, wait no that is a lie, an awful awful lie.

This sign is located in the epicenter of readerboard communication, Port Henry. It took me a mile of driving to fully decipher this one, at which point I turned around to get photo proof.
Sunday morning greeted me with shoulder pain that only accompanies a day of wiffle. With haste, I packed the Fiesta with enough gear to survive a week in Chicago conferencing with the industry. Now truth be told, I only packed about 80% of the gear that I needed, but that didn't stop me from rolling out.

Vermont fading in the distance
People will tell you that Chicago is short Sunday drive from Vermont, they are lying liars telling lies. It starts off innocently enough, some quaint mountain driving, a little thruway action that slowly melts into a lot of thruway.

This sky was amazing, I think it was in New Penohiana.
I knocked out the drive in one long 14 hour haul. The Fiesta is a surprisingly easy ride to roll long distances. This really was just a warm up in prep for the big drive at the end of the month.

I had not fully comprehended the total tolls necessary to get from VT to Chicago. As my father-in-law would say, "greedy, just plain greedy"

Conferences are always an odd experience. You are immersed into a world of focused optimism that can be exhilarating and painful all at once. You can learn everything about an industry during the day and if you are not careful lose all the knowledge at night. I approached this one with a focused agenda and a tight time frame that limited the nightly damage.

The first night featured the tunes of Blues Traveler in a conference hall big enough to hold all of Vermont. The evening wound down to the echo of conference goers bidding farewell to long lost colleagues and contacts with a heart felt, "Have a good show!"

Last year's conference in Houston was monstrous. Everything was clicking for the wind industry. Turbines were sold-out through 2010 and projects were popping up like dandelions in my lawn. Clipper held their conference party in the Houston Petroleum Club on the top floor of the Exxon Mobil office. With some legislative reform, everything would be in place for the industry to go fully mainstream. Its time had come.

Take the time to really inspect the wind device highlighted in the middle, you won't be sorry...for long
A year later and everything has changed. People are selling second hand turbines at losses, all the projects are frozen, manufacturing facilities are shutting down and yet on the surface the optimism remains strong. 2008 represented a record year for investment in wind companies. Over $8.4 billion flowed into the industry as the economy crumbled beneath our feet. The results of this investment was readily apparent upon the exhibition floor. The going comment of those in the know was "too many suppliers, not nearly enough buyers."

As I wrote in my Renewable Energy World article, the economic crisis holds many positives for the wind industry in the long term. The article focuses on the restructuring of the manufacturing base to better serve a high growth potential.

Progress on the legislative front has represented a semi unexpected source of positive movement. At this year's conference, you didn't hear many people moaning about the lack of support for the industry from the US government. In fact, it was quite the opposite, people were glowing with positive comments for the government.

It is widely known that the renewable energy sector benefited heavily from the recent stimulus package. We are starting to see things moving again, well at least the conversations have started again.

More important to the long term viability of the industry, there is significant legislation movement in both the House and Senate right now. The groundwork is being laid for a national renewable electricity standard (RES). This would set a percentage for amount of renewables that all states must have in their mix. This is massively important as it would set the floor for renewable growth and ensure continued movement. Intertwined with the RES legislation is the cap and trade bill to battle climate change. I suspect that this will be a bill that does not make it into this session, however it is very likely the RES does.

The final important piece of movement in Washington is a plan for a national grid to support renewable build-out. The chairman of FERC spoke on the first day and hinted heavily at a national CREZ system similar to the Texas plan. This would basically establish regions with increased incentives for certain renewables to facilitate parallel build-out of transmission. The need for a comprehensive transmission was echoed by the Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar on the first day and T. Boone Pickens on the second day. It is incredibly reassuring to see the proper attention being paid to such an integral component for the industry's success.

You have to love a city so industrial that they changed the direction their river flows.

As with most conferences, I had little time to explore and enjoy the fine city of Chicago. I spent hours and hours inside the bubble of McCormick Place. There is so much to love about Chicago, it would have been difficult to crunch into an industry focused post. I suspect the family may roll the Fiesta out later in the year for a more touristy trek.

Until then,
cheers, ciao - Seth