Community Planning Strategies
for Successful Wind Energy Implementation
The Green Communities Research Center, one of APA's National Centers for Planning, has been selected to receive a grant for work on wind energy. U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the $100,000 grant on May 6, 2009.
Work on this project will begin Fall 2009, and the resulting guidebook is expected to be published in Spring 2011.
The United States must dramatically increase its capacity for wind power production in order to meet the U.S. Department of Energy's goal of 20 percent wind energy by 2030.
Planners working in cities, towns, counties, and regions — and the planning consultants who work with them — play an integral role in the development, siting, and permitting of wind energy facilities.
They need information, analyses, and tools to help integrate wind energy development into the community planning process at the municipal, county, and regional scales. Planners are already grappling with this issue: Wind energy was among the top three planning issues on which APA's Planning Advisory Service subscribers requested information in 2008.
Scope of the Project
On this project, APA has partnered with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Clarion Associates, and the American Wind Energy Association to produce a guidebook, Community Planning Strategies for Successful Wind Energy Implementation, for publication in 2011.
APA will bring together technical experts to develop the scope of the guidebook, which is anticipated to include outreach strategies and best practices for engaging wind energy developers, elected officials, and stakeholders; siting guidelines and procedures; and examples of how to address wind energy development in local plans and ordinances.
Copies of the guidebook will be automatically distributed to all planning agencies and organizations that subscribe to the APA's Planning Advisory Service. The guidebook will also be made available online and through APA's bookstore. The effort is intended to help Wind Powering America, a Department of Energy initiative, increase wind energy use throughout the United States.
For more information about this project, contact energy@planning.org.
