What is the National Wind Coordinating Collaborative?

A consensus-based collaborative formed in 1994, the National Wind Coordinating Collaborative (NWCC) comprises a diverse set of stakeholders.  NWCC's work is currently focused on wind and wildlife issues.

Mission of the Wildlife Workgroup:
To identify, define, discuss, and through broad stakeholder involvement and collaboration address wind-wildlife and wind-habitat interaction issues to promote the shared objective of developing commercial markets for wind power in the United States.

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Participation Guidelines:
In August 2012, NWCC staff (in consultation with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Department of Energy) developed new participation guidelines for the NWCC Wildlife Workgroup. To review these Guidelines in full, please click here.  To view a webinar summarizing these Guidelines, please click here.  

The Guidelines are summarized below:

I. Organization
a. Participants
Consistent with the NWCC’s Wildlife Workgroup historical role, the NWCC will operate as an open forum available to all interested parties. The email list – the primary form of communication with the NWCC – will be open to all interested subscribers, and users may elect to change their subscription preferences at any time.

b. Committees
For specific NWCC activities, AWWI will maintain existing or convene informal committees to help guide the activity. Participation on committees will be open to all interested volunteers (who support the mission of NWCC & AWWI), and AWWI may solicit additional parties or narrow participation from a specific sector to ensure balance and a manageable committee size.

II. Operating Principals
a. Ground Rules
Parties that participate in AWWI-NWCC activities will be asked to agree to abide by the following ground rules:

• Respect each other’s various points of view.

• Avoid personal attacks and the use of intimidation.

• When making comments, be considerate of the time needed for others to share their perspectives.

• Follow through on commitments made to the facilitators and the rest of the group.

b. Decision Making
Final decisions will be made by AWWI staff in consultation with committee members, DOE/NREL, and scientific experts. When appropriate, consensus decisions may be requested from specific committees. Committee members may request the use of consensus decision-making for a specific question, but to ensure that work is able to proceed in a timely manner, AWWI reserves the final say in how decisions are made.

c. Confidentiality
No party will characterize the position of any other party in public statements or in discussions with the press, even if that party withdraws from the activity. If approached by the press, participants in committee activities will speak on behalf of their organization but not on behalf of the committee.

Next steps memos, and as appropriate, meeting summaries, will be prepared by a facilitator after each conference call, meeting, and/or workshop. The meeting summaries will serve as a means of characterizing the business conducted at each meeting. The final meeting summaries will be made available to the public via the NWCC website. Meeting participants will not attribute discussion to any one individual, organization, or sector.

Open webinars will be recorded and made available via the NWCC website.

Note: The Sage-Grouse Research Collaborative and Grassland Community Collaborative Oversight Committees operate under separate sets of Operating Protocols.  

 

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Survey of the Wildlife Workgroup:
In April 2012, NWCC staff administered a survey of the Wildlife Workgroup to inform the development of key objectives for the Wildlife Workgroup in 2012 and beyond and to inform the development of new Guidelines. To view a summary of the survey responses, please click here. 

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Funding and Staffing:
The NWCC is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Wind and Water Technologies Program through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and is facilitated by the American Wind Wildlife Institute (AWWI). AWWI also contributes funds to support the efforts of the NWCC.