Paul Gipe

Paul Gipe has worked with wind energy since 1976. His experience with the technology runs the gamut from measuring wind resources to installing residential wind turbines. Gipe is best known for his advocacy of wind energy and for his articles and books on the subject. Through his writing and public speaking, Gipe has sought to popularize the use of wind energy worldwide. In 1998 the World Renewable Energy Congress designated Gipe a "pioneer in renewable energy," one of the group's highest honors.

In 2004, Gipe served as the acting executive director of the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association where he created, managed, and implemented a provincial campaign for Advanced Renewable Tariffs. The campaign sought to adapt electricity feed laws to the North American market and was instrumental in placing the European concept on the political agenda in Ontario. Gipe also wrote a report on Ontario's wind potential for the David Suzuki Foundation.

From 1986 to 1994, Gipe represented the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) on the West Coast. He was the executive director of the Kern Wind Energy Association from 1987 to 1995. In 1988, AWEA named him the wind industry's "man of the year," the group's highest honor. He also served on AWEA's board of directors from 1996 to 1998.

Gipe has written six books: Wind Energy: How To Use It (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1983), Wind Power for Home & Business (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 1993), Wind Energy Comes of Age (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995), Glossary of Wind Energy Terms (Knebel, Denmark: Folaget Vistoft, 1997), Wind Energy Basics (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 1999), and Wind Power: Renewable Energy for Home, Farm, and Business (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2004). Wind Energy Basics was translated into Spanish under the title Energ—a Eólica Práctica (Seville, Spain: Progensa, 2000) and translated into Italian under the title of Elettricitá dal Vento (Rome: Franco Muzzio Editore, 2002).

Wind Energy Comes of Age was selected by the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association, for its list of outstanding academic books in 1995.

Gipe contributed a chapter to Guide de L'Énergie Éolienne (Paris: Collection Etudes et Filiéres, 1998), and co-authored a chapter in Wind Turbine Technology (New York: ASME Press, 1994). He was the principal contributor to the Izaak Walton League's Landowner's Guide to Wind Energy in the Upper Midwest. He was one of the lead authors of Wind Power in View: Energy Landscapes in a Crowded World (San Diego: Academic Press, 2002). Gipe has also written numerous articles for both the popular and trade press. His photography has appeared in magazines, books, commercial slide sets, brochures, and posters. He has lectured widely on wind energy in the United States and abroad.

From 1999 to 2003 Gipe measured the performance and noise emissions from small wind turbines at the Wulf Test Field in the Tehachapi Pass. The results of his tests have been published in WindStats Newsletter and are available on this web site under the section titled Small Wind.

In the early 1980s, Gipe managed a pioneering anemometer loan program in Pennsylvania, and in the early 1990s installed two highway advisory radio stations in California. Gipe's script for one of the transmitters won a 1993 TIMMY award for descriptive interpretation.

Gipe's interest in wind energy grew out of his wish to limit the environmental effects of conventional energy sources, particularly those of coal and nuclear power. He contributed to the seven-year struggle for passage of the National Surface Mining Act, which regulates the strip mining of coal in the United States. As part of that effort, Gipe co-authored Surface Mining, Energy, and the Environment.

While a student at Ball State University, Gipe contributed to a citizens' group that successfully petitioned the Indiana Legislature to ban the sale of phosphate detergents. He graduated with an interdisciplinary degree in Natural Resources.

Gipe has modeled the noise and air quality impacts of proposed highway and mass transit projects in Pennsylvania, studied the geohydrologic impact of strip mining in Montana, evaluated water pollution in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and represented the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Sierra Club before the Pennsylvania state legislature. He is a past member of the Sierra Club's technical advisory team on energy, and past chapter chair of the Kern-Kaweah chapter. In 2005, the Kern-Kaweah chapter awarded him the Sierra Club Cup, the chapter's highest honor.

For more information visit wind-works.org.