Wind Empowerment 2018 International Conference: WEIndia 2018

The 4th Wind Empowerment International Conference, “WEIndia2018: Bringing Small Wind Turbines up to Scale”, will take place in Chennai and Kayathar, India from 1 – 14 December 2018.

This year’s conference is jointly organised by Wind Empowerment and the National Institute for Wind Energy (NIWE), India. It will be longer than previous conferences, spanning approximately two weeks: one week of training sessions and one week for the conference programme.

The overarching theme “Bringing Small Wind Turbines up to Scale” is a key issue to the integration of small wind into an energy ecosystem where photovoltaic is ever cheaper and hybrid solutions are becoming mainstream ideas.

WEIndia2018 will be hosted at two locations in India, Chennai and Kayathar, both located within the state of Tamil Nadu:

  • Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu state, at NIWE’s main offices
  • Kayathar, a small town in the state of Tamil Nadu, very close to Madurai, at NIWE’s Wind Turbine Test Station (WTTS) & Wind Turbine Research Station (WTRS)

Pre-conference activities (9 days) will take place at NIWE’s facilities in Kayathar. On the 9th day, participants will be transferred by bus to Madurai airport (2-hour drive) and by plane to Chennai (1-hour flight), where the Main conference activities (5 days) will take place.

In Kayathar, NIWE’s warehouse areas will be used for the hands-on manufacturing workshops, where all parts of a wind turbine, from blades and generator to tower and electronics will be constructed. This equipment will be bench tested, assembled, installed and field tested at NIWE’s Wind Turbine Test Station. NIWE’s Wind Turbine Research Station will also be visited and used for parallel activities.

In Chennai, participants will visit NIWE’s training center and main office facilities.These can be used on the last day, which is focused on Wind Empowerment’s internal processes, so fewer local participants are expected. During days 10-13 however, Wind Empowerment expects to have more than 150 participants, i.e. multiple state government participants from rural development, renewable energy and poverty alleviation departments as well as NGOs, universities and private entrepreneurs involved in rural development issues.

The conference programme and all other relevant information is compiled over at WEIndia2018.

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