Nominate Now! Excellence in Renewable Energy Awards

With the help of our readers, RenewableEnergyWorld.com will be picking the top North American companies, technologies and initiatives in the clean energy space and presenting the awards at next February's Renewable Energy World Conference and Expo in Austin, Texas.

Here at Renewable Energy World, we hear about and report on so many new projects, technologies and business models, we feel it's time to recognize those that rise to the top. Quite often, we learn about these innovations from our active, highly-educated audience. So in order to leverage the knowledge base of our readers, we want to open up the nomination process to everyone. 

Nominations must be received by November 30, 2009, so take action now!

We'll be looking at a range of municipalities, non-profits, utilities and companies in the solar, wind, bioenergy, geothermal and hydro industries to determine which players are leading the increasingly-crowded pack here in North America.

This year's North American award categories include:

PROJECT of the YEAR — Not a week goes by without an announcement of a “first” for some type of project. This award recognizes the highest achievement for a renewable energy project of any scale. It can be given to a tech company, a developer, a financier, or even an individual, and can be judged both on technological innovation and reduction in installed cost.

LEADERSHIP in RENEWABLE ENERGY — The renewable energy industry has been built by pioneers who have worked tirelessly to bring technologies, investor confidence and public support to such high levels. This award recognizes any individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the industry in any of those areas.

UTILITY-SCALE RENEWABLES — Now that more utilities are required to procure large amounts of renewables, large utility-run programs are popping up all the time. This is an award for projects, technologies or programs being deployed on the utility scale. It can represent a multi-project program for customers, a single innovative project or a technology that allows utility-scale projects to improve performance.

DISTRIBUTED & ON-SITE RENEWABLES — While the trend toward larger, more centralized projects continues, renewables are still an inherently distributed source of energy. This award recognizes projects, technologies or programs related to an on-site renewable energy system that are sub-utility in scale and that may be used at an industrial or large commercial installation.

BUILDING-INTEGRATED RENEWABLES — The application of renewables into building design is incredibly diverse. This award recognizes outstanding innovations in integrating renewable energy systems into building materials and building construction.

INNOVATION in RENEWABLE ENERGY — With such a broad array of technologies and applications out there, we don't want to miss something that doesn't fall under the other categories. This award recognizes excellence in any program, technology, financial instrument or policy that advances renewable energy.

READERS' CHOICE — Finally, we want to present an award based upon the most popular choice from our readers. This award will be given to the favorite of readers from all the nominations selected and posted on our online awards judging web site.

This is a great opportunity for us to give you, our readers a chance to voice your opinion what's happening in the industry. The nomination process is already underway — to cast your vote, visit the Excellence in Renewable Energy Awards website. We want to hear from you.