Tim Dwight makes a presentation at the statehouse.

A former University of Iowa football player who spent nine seasons in the NFL is at the statehouse today , urging legislators to do more to promote solar power and small wind turbines in Iowa.

Tim Dwight is president of the Iowa Solar Small Wind Trade Association.

“We are a pretty young organization. We just started up last year,” Dwight says. “…We’re trying to become experts in this field and bring the expertise to Iowa.” Dwight says Iowa needs to position itself as the epicenter of all forms of renewable energy.

“Not just our big wind that we’ve all done so well with but also with distributed generation, which is solar, small wind and also solar thermal,” Dwight says. Dwight points to states like Illinois and Missouri where legislators have passed laws requiring utilities to generate a small portion of their power from solar panels.