InfrastructureUSA.org is a non-profit, online community whose mission is to bring together infrastructure experts, industry leaders, government officials and most especially interested citizens, to participate in vigorous conversation and generate action to address the U.S. infrastructure crisis.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is the national trade association for the U.S. wind industry – the country’s fastest growing energy industry. With thousands of wind industry members and wind policy advocates, AWEA promotes wind energy as a clean source of electricity for American consumers. AWEA counts more than 1,200 organizations in its member program: wind project developers, wind turbine manufacturers, component suppliers, service providers, electric utilities, construction companies, engineering firms, consultants and financial advisors.

Rob Gramlich has been with AWEA since 2005.  He was interim CEO for several months, and continues to be one of the most valuable leaders at AWEA.  Gramlich leads AWEA’s work in the areas of legislation, regulatory policy, state relations, and industry information, spending a lot of time communicating the great benefits wind energy is bringing to the nation through testimony and media interactions. Prior to joining AWEA in 2005, Gramlich was Economic Advisor to FERC Chairman Pat Wood III and Senior Economist with the mid-Atlantic grid operator, PJM Interconnection, LLC.

AWEA: Bringing Wind Energy to the Mainstream
“The American Wind Energy Association is focused on growing the market for wind energy, which involves a lot of public policy and public education. We are trying to get support for wind energy as a resource in our electricity …we work on a lot of issues that we view as barriers to growing wind energy in the country.” 

Challenges to Wind Energy: the Myth and the Reality
“If the wind stops blowing in one place it’s most likely blowing somewhere else around that region and therefore across the region, and these are regional electricity markets that we have in the country. Across the region wind itself is not variable…if you spread it out with transmission across such a wide region.”

Wind Power in Your Back Yard
“It takes some communication and work, and also recognition on our industry’s part that it’s not appropriate to have a wind turbine in every location. Our developers very carefully consider whether each location is appropriate and work with the communities about whether they want to have it.”

Apathy is Easy, But We’re Getting Better
“One of the things that we often find is everybody wants infrastructure but nobody wants to pay for it, and it’s so easy to free-ride on infrastructure.  You can always depend on somebody else picking up the tab and, if you’re not the squeaky wheel, kind of sit back and somebody else will take care of it.” 

Download full transcript (PDF): Rob Gramlich on The Infra Blog

Tags: American Wind Energy Association, AWEA, Rob Gramlich, Turbines, Wind, Wind Energy

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 10th, 2013 at 1:37 pm and is filed under Clean Air, Energy, Funding, Guests on The Infra Blog, National, Private Investment, Sustainability, The Infra Blog . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.