Appalachian Institute for Renewable Energy
Pioneering community-owned renewable energy
Can’t wait ‘til Saturday! It’s the Second Annual Music on the Mountaintop in beautiful Boone, North Carolina on the headwaters of the New River. It’s time for some great music, some fun, fellowship, and a renewable energy revolution. Sam Bush is coming to town to help out. Telluride Bluegrass Festival, MerleFest, and now back to
Don’t forget that the 9th annual Southern Energy & Environment Expo (SEE Expo) in Asheville this weekend. Many great presentations and exhibitors. Runs August 21-23.
With all the discussion about wind energy in North Carolina these days, I just wanted to share a video that I think typifies the extraordinary possibility offered by the partnership of human creativity and wind energy – so with no further adieu I will submit for your viewing pleasure the story of a Malawian teen,
RALEIGH – The N.C. Senate voted today to ban the commercial generation of wind energy in mountain counties. Supporters of the ban argued that the construction of large wind turbines on mountain ridges would ruin the natural beauty of the mountains. Environmentalists say that the state should be encouraging wind power, not limiting it. Read
It’s been a while but AIRE’s community solar demonstration is finally producing electricity and reducing Boone’s carbon footprint. Here’s a brief update and look ahead to some next steps. Keep in mind the purpose of our first project was to illuminate the barriers to community-based renewable energy, and then create solutions to those barriers. Here’s
The raging wind policy war in North Carolina exposes a vast gulf in understanding, and in limited cases, the inability to carry on a civil discourse to explore difference. This has a polarizing effect on the discourse and creates a blind spot for the third way– “distributed generation” or community-based renewable energy. Certainly some favor
In the volatile debate on wind power permitting in North Carolina (SB1068), it seems that the only versions of the story being told are utility-scale wind farms and anti-wind. In other words, it’s a polarized, “all or nothing” framing of the issue as shaped by the media and the over-simplified public rhetoric. Here’s a closer
View the installation of Boone’s first Community Owned solar electric system on the roof of The Greenhouse via the below time lapse video. You can watch the complete build out of the solar electric panels in just 3 minutes and 7 seconds.
The Southern Appalachian region contains abundant and readily available wind, solar, and microhydro resources for producing home-grown, clean, and renewable energy. The Western North Carolina Renewable Energy Initiative (WNCREI) is an Appalachian State University Energy Center (ASUEC) project dedicated to helping create a sustainable energy future for our region. The WNCREI is proud to host