From Green Right Now Reports
This month the Kodiak Electric Association proved that there’s more to the Alaskan energy landscape than oil wells and pipelines.
The U.S. Department of Energy and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association named the co-op the 2009 Wind Cooperative of the Year.
The award, announced the TechAdvantage Conference in Atlanta last week, recognizes the Alaskan cooperative’s Pillar Mountain Wind Project, which is the first utility-scale wind facility. The operation is expected to be a valuable pilot effort at integrating a large wind generation facility into an isolated grid system.
The NRECA and the DOE’s project Wind Powering America program created the award to encourage cooperatives showing leadership in advancing domestic wind power. The judges considered corporate leadership, marketing, customer benefit and creativity of the project in deciding upon winners.
For more information on how the federal government is encouraging the development of renewal wind energy see DOE’s Wind Powering America Web site.
Here’s a cool graphic that shows how wind power has grown in the U.S. in the past decade, from 2,000 MegaWatts to 28,635 MW by April 30, 2009. See the animated version at the Wind Powering site.
Installed wind power 2009