UWIG Update

September 2008

In this issue

• UWIG Gears Up for Fall Technical Workshop
• Turbine O&M User Group to Hold Second Meeting Under New Format
• UWIG to Offer Scholarships, Support for Students to Attend Meetings
• UWIG Helps Organize Wind Super Session at IEEE PES General Meeting

UWIG Gears Up for Fall Technical Workshop

UWIG will hold the 2008 Fall Technical Workshop in Denver, Colo. October 2-3 at the Brown Palace Hotel. In conjunction with this event, the Turbine Operations & Maintenance Users Group will meet at the Hilton Garden Inn in Fort Collins, Colo. on September 30 (see following story) and the other user groups will meet at the Brown Palace Hotel on October 1. Workshop topics to be addressed include:

• Regional wind transmission developments
• Grid code and performance evaluations
• Wind integration studies
• Forecasting developments
• Industry updates

In conjunction with the Fall Technical Workshop, technical tours of the Vestas Blades plant and Xcel Energy’s Cabin Creek Pumped Hydro Storage Facility will be offered. The Vestas Blades plant tour is available to individuals who are affiliated with utilities, system operators, developers, government employees, consultants, and university faculty/students, but not other turbine manufacturers. Registration for this tour will end on September 9 and no additional participants will be accepted. Registration for the Cabin Creek tour is available to all, but must be made in advance and there is a limit of 40 participants.

Please note that the room block at the Brown Palace Hotel will expire on September 4.

Details on registration, accommodations, and agenda can be found on the UWIG web site at http://www.uwig.org/falltechworkshop2008.html. 

Turbine O&M User Group to Hold Second Meeting Under New Format

The UWIG Turbine Operations & Maintenance Users Group will hold its fall meeting on September 30 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Fort Collins, Colo. This event is the second meeting under this user group’s new scope, membership requirements, and participation limitations. The morning will consist of a Plenary Session open to user group members and interested parties from UWIG member organizations. The Plenary Session at this meeting will focus on blades. A complete agenda for the Plenary Session will be posted in the near term.

The afternoon session will consist of vendor product-specific Roundtable Forums for user group members only. The format will consist of open discussions, moderated by a Roundtable chair, centered on a specific wind turbine component or specific model of wind turbine. The Roundtable will provide the opportunity for frank and open discussion among users, who will share their information, knowledge and experience.

Attendees will have the opportunity on October 1 to tour the Vestas Blades plant in nearby Windsor, Colo. This tour is available to individuals who are affiliated with utilities, system operators, developers, and plant owners/operators, but not other turbine manufacturers. Registration for this tour is limited to the first 35 individuals and participants must be cleared by UWIG and Vestas management. Registration for this tour will end on September 9 and no additional participants will be accepted.

Details on the meeting can be found on the UWIG web site at http://www.uwig.org/oandmFortCollins.html. For information on participation eligibility requirements, please contact Sandy Smith, sandy@uwig.org. 

UWIG to Offer Scholarships, Support for Students to Attend Meetings

The Utility Wind Integration Group (UWIG) announced that it will establish a scholarship program for students working towards careers in the electric power and wind industries, as well as provide financial assistance to students interested in attending UWIG events.

These scholarships and assistance will be available to students enrolled in accredited college or vocational schools in programs related to power engineering, wind energy, or the maintenance of wind turbines. To be eligible for scholarship assistance, a student must be currently enrolled at trade school or college in a field of study that could lead to a career related to utility power engineering or operation and maintenance of utility-scale wind equipment.

UWIG may award up to three scholarships each year. Up to two $2,000 scholarships will be granted to students enrolled in an accredited engineering school who are pursuing a career in power engineering with a focus or major on wind generation, and up to one $1,000 scholarship to a student enrolled in an accredited wind technician program. UWIG will determine the winner of each scholarship based on grade point average and a short essay explaining why the student is pursuing a career related to wind generation. The recipients of these scholarships will be made at UWIG’s Annual Membership Meeting each spring.

UWIG also plans to award up to six educational stipends each year to provide financial assistance to students wishing to attend a UWIG-sponsored meeting. The amount of the stipends may vary and will be set by the UWIG Board of Directors in consultation with UWIG staff.

The scholarship program will be available beginning in 2009. Information about the application and selection process will be released by UWIG later this year on the web site as well as through the UWIG Update.

UWIG Helps Organize Wind Super Session at IEEE PES General Meeting

UWIG assisted in organizing a Super Session on realizing 20% of the United States’ supply of electricity by 2030 at the IEEE Power & Energy Society’s 2008 General Meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa. on July 22. A panel of speakers, many of which participated in the U.S. Department of Energy’s report on realizing such a scenario, participated in this session, along with speakers presenting on European studies of significant penetrations of wind power.

Presentations from this panel are available on the UWIG web site at http://www.uwig.org/IEEEPES2008.html. 

UWIG Board of Directors

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