Windwise will advance the wind energy technologies office (weto) goals and make a defining market impact by building strong and equitable distributed wind (DW) markets through incentivizing…

Windwise will advance the wind energy technologies office (weto) goals and make a defining market impact by building strong and equitable distributed wind (DW) markets through incentivizing communities to implement transformative, locally generated solutions for reducing soft costs and growing local distributed wind markets. Our proposed project goal is to develop a national outreach, training, technical assistance (TA), and designation program that is focused on local governments (LGS), integrated with solsmart and other smart community designation programs, and designed to reduce soft costs by raising awareness of DW and implementing best practices in permitting, zoning, planning, inspection, community engagement, and financing/incentives. This will make DW more accessible to community members in localities where DW can be cost effectively and equitably deployed to support place-based energy transitions. The outcomes of windwise will include: • energized outreach, communication, and content. The windwise team will share resources, case studies, and other relevant content through effective outreach and communication approaches to key decision makers working in LGS. We will leverage icma's extensive communication channels and those of our partners to share previously developed materials, as well as new information to be developed through our proposed project plan, with elected and appointed local government officials and staff. We'LL leverage the forthcoming national renewable energy lab (nrel) national distributed wind deployment network, as an additional outreach conduit. Through these channels we will reach over 95% of the 23,000 city and county local governments with population of 1,000 or more and also have tailored campaigns to targeted regions primed for growth as outlined in nrels distributed wind energy future study. Outreach and communications will be coordinated and integrated with the solsmart program to ensure clear messaging to communities. • targeted training. Leveraging the nrel DW futures study, we will target training in localities across the U.S. That are primed for DW growth. We will also leverage national conferences of local government staff (e.g., icma, national association of counties (naco)) with workshops or trainings. Through these and other outlets we propose a suite of training that will raise awareness of DW, educate over 1,000 LG officials and staff, and elevate their capacity to advance DW energy deployments in their communities. • national designation recognizing key actions for DW. We will leverage our solsmart experience developing solar criteria to elevate key DW criteria based on innovative and best practice in permitting, zoning, planning, inspection, community engagement, and financing/incentives. Our criteria will be strengthened with the input of an external technical advisory committee (TAC) comprised of DOE, national laboratories, DW industry, utilities, state agency representatives, planners, and others. The DW criteria will be shared via our outreach channels and implemented with our TA and training activities to designate at least 200 LGS as windwise. • customized technical assistance. We will develop a TA strategy that will support communities seeking to implement best practices in DW as outlined in the criteria. Pairing TA with the designation program incentivizes LGS to implement key actions that will accelerate DW deployment and earn recognition for their efforts. We will also leverage the proven method of peer-to-peer cohort-based learning to provide additional capacity strengthening for potential windwise designees. At least 250 LGS will receive TA. • equitable benefits. Windwise will ensure that the project outcomes are aligned with the JUSTICE40 goals to bring at least 40% of program benefits to those people and places that have not traditionally benefited from federal funding and programming. Windwise will ensure that at least 40% of the designees, local governments that receive TA, and local government officials receiving trainings are from disadvantaged communities. Windwise will work with DOE to identify disadvantaged communities, using tools such as DOE's disadvantaged community reporter, the white house cejst, or the distributed wind deployment mapping tool, which matches relevant community data with DW deployment potential • integrated approach. Recognizing that local governments are seeking coordinated and comprehensive support to advance their climate and energy goals, windwise will be delivered in a way that is consistent and integrated with complementary programs including solsmart, to the extent feasible.