DES MOINES — The Iowa Wind Energy Asoociation’s Sixth Annual Wind Conference will be held March 25-27 at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines.
Iowa Wind Power 2013 planning is well underway with a powerful slate of national, state and industry leaders presenting. Governor Terry Branstad and Lt. Governor Kim Reynolds are confirmed speakers. The conference will focus on four general themes that reflect the national and world leadership position that Iowa has achieved. Those themes include technology development, small and community wind, operation and maintenance and education training and research.
General session presentations will focus on national policy and wind energy growth and sustainability issues. Many of these sessions will focus on the utility scale segment of the wind energy industry with a major presentation about transmission development and large scale wind farm deployment in Iowa and the nation.
For the second year, IWEA will provide a Research Poster Display project that will provide an opportunity to highlight research being done to improve the function and profitability of the wind energy industry. This year, Exelon Energy is sponsoring the Research Poster Display project.
Iowa is first in the nation in the number of wind energy manufacturing companies and number of wind energy jobs. With the seventh best wind resource in the nation and a central location with convenient access to major rivers and the national interstate highway system Iowa is likely to remain an industry leader.
Wind farm development and wind energy manufacturing has attracted an estimated $10 billion of capital investment to Iowa and over $4 billion in increased property tax valuation in the past few years. Iowa landowners are receiving almost $20 million annually in land lease payments. Further development will add billions more in capital investment, thousands of good paying jobs, millions of dollars in annual landowner lease payments and billions of added property tax valuation.
The event promises to be larger than last year. The conference plans to have as many as 65 exhibitors and several hundred conference attendees. Persons or companies interested in attending, exhibiting or in sponsorship opportunities should contact IWEA staff at www.iowawindenergy.org.