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The New Tailwind for Distributed Wind Energy
Rising rural electrification, structural natural gas shifts, and the microgrid boom set the stage for distributed wind’s resurgence.
Recently the long term leader of the USA’s Distributed Wind Energy Association, Mike Bergey of Bergey Windpower and a long term acquaintance, reached out to ask me to keynote the annual conference in Washington. Putting together my material led me to consider the strategic drives and how they would be positive or negative for wind turbines in the 3.5 kW to MW scale. All told, the indicators are good. What follows are the slides and a lightly edited transcript of my prepared material and the Q&A session.
Thank you so much for having me today. It’s a fascinating time. As Mike alluded, it’s a challenging and transforming time. But as Mike said, distributed wind is essential to US rural industry of all types, not just agriculture, but especially agriculture because they’ve got wide open spaces.
I’m reminded of the only time I think I met Mike in person. I was in Las Vegas in 2014 at WindPower, the major annual event that AWEA used to put on. I was actually living in Singapore then. AWEA paid for me to be at WindPower 2014, in part because I was at the time the senior fellow of wind for the Energy and…
