Selling Energy Infrastructure

Selling Energy Infrastructure. I’m Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report.

Bringing clean, renewable energy projects into a region can be a tricky thing and a very competitive one. Diahann Howard is the Executive Director for the Tri-Cities Research District and it’s her job to bring in those companies with renewable projects.

HOWARD: The Port of Benton donates a portion of my time to serve as the Executive Director for the Tri-Cities Research District which is the Tri-Cities Community Research Park. It’s an 1800-acre park and so we participated in the Harvesting Clean Energy Conference in Boise. This is our second year participating with them. It’s a great conference for us to be at from a presence perspective. We’re meeting and providing a lot of perspective about our communities aspects.

The Tri-Cities, Washington area consists of Kennewick, Pasco and Richland and includes Pacific Northwest National Labs (PNNL), Washington State University Tri-Cities and the Bioproducts, Sciences, and Engineering Laboratory (BSEL).

HOWARD: And that’s kind of a key recruitment piece as well as our knowledge of the workforce so we share that with companies that are in the energy world doing lots of various testing, prototyping across the board from biomass to solar to hydrogen and wind. And we make sure that they are aware of our community, aware of its assets and we work to bring them in to the Tri-Cities to take a look at doing their R&D work or doing their prototyping work here in the Tri-Cities.

Howard says they are working hard to fill in the area.

HOWARD: So any opportunity to bring in a new company, showcase how their energy project can work in a sustainable fashion is what we want to do in the research district and also showcasing the work that is already going on at Pacific Northwest National Lab as well as WSU Tri-Cities and really tell the story of the work that is happening within the buildings and showcasing how that can integrate.

And she says shows like the Harvesting Clean Energy Conference are important.

HOWARD: We do have companies that are coming to take a look at our community and that’s a result we’re looking for when we go to those shows. It provides opportunity for some great in-depth discussion and some real direct marketing to occur.

For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.???www.harvestcleanenergy.org