SouthWest Windpower–Globe Sustainability Award

Personal wind turbine developer internationally recognized for contributions to sustainable living

Southwest Windpower, the world’s leading manufacturer of small wind turbines, has been awarded a Globe Sustainability Innovation Award, recognizing the company’s economic, social and ecological innovations that contribute to developing a sustainable society.

“Southwest Windpower stands out as a principled manufacturer of sustainable, renewable energy products that represent true innovation and generate long-term value for people and planet,” said Philip DesAutels, chair of the Globe Award for Sustainable Innovation and director of academic strategy of Microsoft.

Among a competitive group of pioneering companies, Southwest Windpower was unanimously selected as the award winner based on six sequential criteria: prime (ingenuity), prosperity (economic viability), people (social viability), planet (ecologic viability), perpetuity and principle (ethical viability).

“Receiving this international recognition demonstrates Southwest Windpower’s ongoing commitment to make renewable energy accessible, reliable and efficient,” said Dixon Thayer, chief executive officer of Southwest Windpower. “Through the continual refinement of our products, we strive to produce quality, user-friendly personal wind turbines whose advanced, low-cost technology provides users an affordable, clean energy option.”

When first introduced, Southwest Windpower’s grid-connected personal wind turbine, Skystream 3.7, cut the cost of energy for small wind systems in half and earned notable accolades including the “Best of What’s New” award from Popular Science and recognition by TIME as one of the “Best Inventions in 2006.” Yachting Monthly named the company’s Air Breeze™ marine turbine best in class while their Whisper turbine helped two German innovators power a car 3,100 miles through Australia.

“Southwest Windpower makes sustainable energy technologies accessible to people across the globe while simultaneously changing the very nature of power production from closed and centralized to open and distributed,” said DesAutels.

Through partnerships with companies and organizations including Home Depot, Wind for Schools, American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), and the U.S. Department of Energy, Southwest Windpower has helped ensure that small wind technology is competitive and easily accessible to consumers throughout the world.

This year’s Globe Award presentations will be held on Wednesday, May 11th, during the Globe Forum Conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

About Southwest Windpower
Southwest Windpower has been designing and distributing small wind turbines for more than 22 years and is the recognized global leader in the design, manufacturing and distribution of small wind systems (400-3,000 watts). The company has been a pioneer in the development of wind technology and has built and shipped more than 170,000 wind turbines to over 120 countries worldwide and has sales representation in over 88 countries. Headquartered in Flagstaff, Ariz., it also has operations in Cologne, Germany and a joint venture in Ningbo, China. Applications for Southwest Windpower systems include residential homes, commercial properties, micro grids, remote cabins, telecom transmitters, offshore platforms, water pumping and sailboats. Southwest Windpower is the manufacturer of Skystream™, Air Breeze™ and Whisper lines of distributed wind systems.