The seventh Southwest Renewable Energy Conference aimed its focus on “integrating state and federal policy with technology to bring renewable energy to the grid” at its annual event at the High Country Conference Center.

William Auberle, professor of civil and environmental engineering at NAU, has long been a conference supporter, attending since its start in 2001.

“As has been the case since our first renewable conference nearly 10 years ago, this is a coming together of public and private decision makers in an informal setting,” Auberle said. “Regulatory officials and regulated industries will share the podium, but also have many opportunities to discuss common issues informally. This could, and should, lead to better decisions that will expedite our nation’s advancement of renewable energy.”

Craig Cox of the Interwest Energy Alliance discusses wind and solar power at the 2009 Southwest Renewable Energy Conference last Friday. One of the major topics was the legislation that is necessary to make renewable energy affordable for businesses and consumers. Matt Beaty/ The Lumberjack

The conference brought experts, public officials and businessmen involved in the energy industry from the southwestern states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. The industry leaders worked together to network and discover which states are succeeding in implementing more-sustainable methods of producing electricity. What these states have in common is abundant sunshine and wind resources, some of which offer excellent geothermal sources with which to work. 

According to the conference’s website, NAU was chosen to host this conference due to its well-known commitment to green building and green energy, and its support for academic research involved with solutions for sustainable energy production.

Cherae Bilagody and Jonathan Credo, two students from Coconino High School, attended the conference to explore their interests in environmental science and engineering. Both students are high school seniors planning to study at NAU. Credo decided to attend the conference to gather information for his senior project for Coconino Institute of Technology (CIT), which is an accelerated studies program for students.

“I think it’s been very informative,” Bilagody said. “I definitely have more support for geothermal and wind energy over solar.”

Erik Ela, one of the major researchers with the National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL), came to the Arizona Wind Working Group meeting to speak about the Western Wind and Solar Integration study that is currently being held by NREL. The study takes into account all the western states from Colorado to Washington, and it has broken down the states’ lands into small squares in which wind and solar energy production would be able to take place. 

Locations such as religious sites, Native lands and protected parks were not included in this study. Most of the study’s scenarios are based on 30 percent wind and 5 percent solar energy, and NREL has discovered that at 17 cents per kilowatt hour, it would take less than 16 years for energy plants to recuperate the costs spent implementing a solar- and wind-based plant. 

“Monthly energy production varies more on a year-to-year basis than a scenario-to-scenario basis,” Ela said. “It is surprising how affordable green energy is for electricity plants to implement. In the long run, it more than pays for itself.”

According to Craig Cox, the executive director of the Interwest Energy Alliance, wind projects are a boom to small communities, bringing jobs, money and community pride back into their towns. There are more than 8,000 components in a wind turbine, and each of those components gives, at the very least, one job to someone. More than 500,000 jobs are directly supported for the years 2007 to 2030 by the Department of Energy’s 20 percent wind initiative.

Jack Ehrhardt, the planning and economic development director for the Hualapai Nation, attended many of the small meeting and information panels. He said he was interested in hearing about the information regarding solar photo-voltaic plants. His group in the Hualapai Nation is working on a new project to build a 150 mega-watt plant within the next two years.

“[This conference is] an absolute necessity to bring forward the absolute paradigm shift in sustainability,” Ehrhardt said. “Fortunately, we now have a president who will push this into the forefront of our political climate and bring it out into the view of the general public’s awareness.”

The inflatable mascots for the 2009 Southwest Renewable Energy Conference stand heroically outside the High Country Conference Center on Friday afternoon. The conference discussed many details about renewable energy and was held all day Thursday and Friday of last week. Matt Beaty / The Lumberjack