January 2007

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HURUP THY, DENMARK - Seven existing universities and research centers on five continents have joined forces and launched the new decentralized World Wind Energy Institute (WWEI), the institute’s secretariat here and the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE) in Bonn announced last month.

The seven institutions in Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, Denmark, Egypt and Russia will offer a 10-month joint program to provide new opportunities for education and training in wind energy and other renewable energy forms.

As envisioned now, trainees will study and travel in groups of 4-8, spending 2-4 months at three or four of these institutions. The programs will start either in Denmark or Brazil and will be conducted in English. The first groups will get underway in April, with the next groups beginning their programs in August 2007 and January 2008.

WWEI participants and their specialties are (other institutions are expected to join in the future):

• EOLICA, Brazilian Wind Energy Center, www.eolica.com.br/index_ing.html, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil, http://www.ufpe.br: wind power measurements and implementation, wind-diesel RE island projects, high level training and research;
• St. Lawrence College, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, http://energyhouse.ati.sl.on.ca, training in renewables, energy efficiency, operational practice and maintenance, applied research and demonstration;
• Asian Wind Energy Training Centre, Beijing, China: small stand-alone wind mills (with battery chargers), windpumps and wind / PV hybrid stand-alone systems;
• Higher Polytechnical Institute Jose A. Echeverria of Havana, Centre for the Study of Renewable Energy Technologies (CETER), Havana, Cuba, http://www.cujae.edu.cu: wind energy in hurricanes and tropical conditions, coordination of renewable energy research and education in Cuba;
• Nordic Folkecenter for Renewable Energy, Ydby, Denmark, http://www.folkecenter.net/gb: integration of wind, solar, biomass and hydrogen in hybrid and energy efficient systems; research, development and international technology transfer and training;
• African Wind Energy Training Centre, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt, http://www.mans.eun.eg/english: implementation of wind and other renewable energy technologies in desert conditions and international technology transfer;
• Kola Science Center of Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Physical and Technological Problems of Energy in the North Apatiti, Russia, www.kolasc.net.ru: arctic wind power.

WWEI is supported by the David Suzuki Foundation, www.davidsuzuki.org; EUROSOLAR, The European Association for Renewable Energy, www.eurosolar.org; the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association, www.ontario-sea.org; UNESCO, www.unesco.org; and the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE), www.wcre.org.

Contact: WWEI Secretariat, c/o Nordic Folkecenter for Renewable Energy, DK-7760 Hurup Thy, Denmark, +45 9795 6600, fax +45 9795 6565, wwei@folkecenter.dk; www.wwei.info