The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) announced the creation of CLEANPOWER, a new exhibition hub that will bring together the utility-scale wind power, solar power, and energy storage industries when it launches in Denver next May. AWEA CEO Tom Kiernan broke the news during WINDPOWER 2019’s Welcome General Session.
“The future of American energy is clean and renewable. We’re proud to announce CLEANPOWER, an exhibition hub designed from the ground up for the diverse clean energy industry and supply chain professionals who are building that future,” said Tom Kiernan, AWEA CEO. “We’ve welcomed multi-technology businesses at WINDPOWER for years. Now we’re throwing the doors open, creating an even bigger opportunity for companies in wind, solar, storage, and other clean energy technologies to learn and do business across the utility-scale power sector.”
AWEA announced that WINDPOWER 2020 will be housed within CLEANPOWER, which will include new partners and programs for utility-scale wind, solar, and storage.
The WINDPOWER Conference and Exhibition will continue as the heart of CLEANPOWER, with the addition of exhibition space and conference programming for utility-scale solar, storage, and other clean energy technologies. By incorporating these technologies into a single exhibition hub, CLEANPOWER will create efficiencies for exhibitors and attendees with multi-technology business models. Pure play businesses will benefit from increased show traffic and opportunities to build beneficial partnerships across the cleantech industry.
CLEANPOWER marks the latest evolution of AWEA’s conferences and exhibitions, which have existed in one form or another since 1974. In recent years, the content of WINDPOWER and AWEA’s other conferences have evolved in step with trends in the power sector toward multi-technology businesses and projects. Nearly half of WINDPOWER attendees and exhibitors have multi-technology business units.
WINDPOWER 2019’s theme, WIND+, emphasizes how wind, solar, and storage can work together to build a cleaner, stronger power grid for the future, and energy storage played a big role at WINDPOWER 2018 with remarks from Energy Storage Association CEO Kelly Speakes-Backman. Last year, AWEA also launched the Clean Energy Executive Summit as an outgrowth of the longstanding AWEA Fall Symposium.
“The CLEANPOWER hub will bring in new attendees and exhibitors from across the spectrum of utility-scale renewable industries,” said Jana Adams, senior VP in Member Value and Experience at AWEA. “We look forward to announcing more details about CLEANPOWER 2020 in the coming weeks.”
Partnerships with leaders in the solar and storage industries will be essential to the success of CLEANPOWER. AWEA will announce formal partnerships in the lead up to the first CLEANPOWER expo in 2020.
On Wednesday, WINDPOWER’s program will take a deeper dive into the policies and issues that are influencing the growth of the clean energy sector. Notable panel discussions will focus on the Texas wind power success story, how to make improvements to the aging U.S. transmission grid, and pathways to a stronger wind-plus-energy storage market.
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