Program

SITING:  WIND FARMS AND AVIAN IMPACTS

This session will present State-of-the-Art knowledge on the matter of wind turbines and their impacts on birds and bats. Speakers will present recent studies that serve to both increase our understanding of interactions and help reduce mortality rates at wind farms across North America

SITING:  ADVANCED WIND FARM SITING TECHNIQUES

This session will present cutting-edge knowledge on wind farm siting techniques, tools and approaches. Speakers will highlight recent developments in the areas of information systems, engineering considerations, visualisation techniques and siting in complex terrain.

PERMITTING & REGULATORY PROCESSES

Permitting remains a significant and critical issue for wind developers.  This session will review some initiatives aimed at improving the overall process along with a review and what's needed to actually achieve success in the various streamlining initiatives that are underway in a number of jurisdictions

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT:  SUCCESSFUL STRATEGIES

This session will explore the core elements of successful engagement and relationship-building, including discussion around tried and tested tactics, as well as the commitment and resources required to maintain a productive dialogue with key stakeholders.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

A wind energy project is like a marriage, and to achieve success requires a common understanding between the partners.  Certain projects, like certain marriages have unhappy members, and in other projects the parties may be quite pleased.  The speakers in this session will provide you with details of their personal experiences and will share their thoughts on the requirements to successfully engage in a wind project in a host community. 

WIND PROJECT ECONOMICS

This session touches on development, construction and operational discussions that affect the fundamental value of wind projects.  The real and perceived values from generation revenue are core to the growth of Canada's wind industry.

FINANCING WIND PROJECTS POST RECESSION

Having survived through the global financial crisis, learn how to obtain financing for your wind project in the current environment.  Hear from leading industry experts.  This panel discussion will provide insights from developers, investors, lenders and lawyers.

WIND RESOURCE ASSESSMENT:  MEASUREMENTS

Quality wind measurements can not be underestimated when financing a wind farm.  This session presents some of the new trends in resource assessment with the practical use and applications of lidar, experience with different types of anemometers, and finally experience in monitoring the resource is cold climates.

DEVELOPING SMALL & COMMUNITY WIND

This session will examine different aspects of community wind development: how to develop partnerships, specifics of community wind financing and successful community wind models adopted in other countries.

OFFSHORE WIND ENERGY

As wind energy development in Canada continues to grow onshore, Canada's offshore potential is getting closer scrutiny, specifically in the Great Lakes.  This session will provide an overview of offshore wind energy development by looking at the experience in Europe and focusing on the associated permitting and environmental issues.

SUCCESSFULLY ENTERING THE WIND INDUSTRY SUPPLY CHAIN

This panel discussion on what is necessary for a business to successfully enter the supply chain.  Wind turbine manufacturers will share their strategies for supply chain development, review the components they most often outsource and the qualifications a potential supplier must have to do business with them.

SUCCESSFULLY ENTERING THE WIND INDUSTRY VALUE CHAIN

This panel discussion will focus on what is necessary for a business to successfully enter the value chain.  Construction and other service forms will share their outsourcing strategies and discuss the types of service required and the qualifications a successful vendor will have.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY IN THE WIND INDUSTRY

This session will examine health and safety in the wind industry from various perspectives such as:  How to build and effective EHS management system with risk based decision making, safety around electrical equipment, and how to build and effective wind emergency safety plan.

OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE:  KEEPING THEM TURNING

Despite all the work that goes on pre-commissioning, the real purpose of a wind project is to deliver clean power to the public and returns to the owner. This panel outlines strategies for service provider selection, operational indicator monitoring, managing ecological work and estimating future operations costs.

EXPERIENCE FROM OPERATIONAL WIND FARMS

How do I know if my wind farm is performing well?  Why is there a difference between the preconstruction energy estimate and actual performance?  What is the value of disclosing my performance data?  Should I be considering remote sensing technologies for performance assessment?  Will a 24/7 control centre really help me sleep at night?

FORECASTING

This session provides a fresh look at new advances and experiences in the forecasting of wind plant production in the next hour and next day time horizons.  Issues to be addressed include the validation of ramp forecasting techniques and the potential for skill enhancements when using combinations of numerical weather prediction (NWP) models and statistical models.

SOLUTIONS TO EXPANDING THE GRID

This session will explore policy and technical issues related to transmission expansion.

WIND ENERGY INTERCONNECTION & INTEGRATION

This session will bring together service providers to discuss challenges and solutions to facilitate higher wind penetration across Canada.

SOUND MEASUREMENT & PREDICTION TECHNIQUES

This session will bring together service providers to discuss challenges and solutions to sound and measurements and regulations to proposed and operational wind farms.

WIND RESOURCE ASSESSMENT: MODELING

This session will focus on the wind flow modeling aspects of wind resource assessment.  The session will start with new insights on the importance of met tower placement, present new sources for surface roughness data, discuss improvements and validation results for the MCZ mesoscale model, and present the results of an extensive field validation of model performance.

WIND RESOURCE AND INTEGRATION

This session will focus on the wind flow modeling aspects of wind resource assessment.  The session will start with new insights on the importance of met tower placement, present new sources for surface roughness data, discuss improvements and validation results for the MCZ mesoscale model, and present the results of an extensive field validation of model performance.

WIND ENERGY EXTRACTION AND PRODUCTION

This session presents R&D into innovative components, systems, models and methodologies for energy extraction and power production from wind

SMALL WIND:  GROWING THE INDUSTRY – POLICIES AND PROCEDURES

This session will examine policies that support the growth of the small wind industry, and will examine current initiatives in Canadian provinces, as well as draw on examples that governments across Canada can draw from as they work towards building a successful policy framework for small wind. 

SMALL WIND:
GOOD TURBINES AND GOOD PLACES -  WHAT IS NEEDED

This session will examine more technical aspects that are essential to the success of the small wind industry, such as resource assessment, performance and certification of turbines and installers. 

WIND-DIESEL SYSTEMS

This session will identify advances in remote wind diesel systems and identify solutions to current challenges.