Into the Wind - the AWEA Blog

A manufacturer of wind turbine bearings said yesterday that it will close one of three plants in Sumter, S.C., that make parts for the wind energy and military ground vehicle markets. In doing so, Kaydon Corp. cited "continued regulatory uncertainty in the United States, including the impending expiration of the [federal wind energy] Production Tax Credit [PTC] ... "

The announcement is part of a steady contraction over the past few months of what has been a booming new manufacturing sector in the U.S., as uncertainty ...

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It’s as true in the U.K. as it is in the U.S.  It’s also just as true about small wind as it is about the utility-scale segment of the industry: clean, affordable wind power provides a hedge against notoriously volatile fossil-fuel prices.
 
Gaia-Wind, a leading U.K. small wind turbine manufacturer (and AWEA member), recently highlighted a Barclays Bank study revealing that U.K. farmers, increasingly worried about the rising cost of energy, are turning to distributed wind systems in order to protect themselves against those increases. Almost a third (31 percent) expect a move ...

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With the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center reporting that there are 8,250 wind energy jobs in the Bay State, U.S. Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Congresswoman Niki Tsongas (D-Mass.) are backing an extension of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), according to the Quincy (Mass.) Patriot Ledger.

The bipartisan support for the PTC reflects warnings from wind industry advocates that roughly half of the 75,000 jobs in the industry nationwide will be lost by the end of the first quarter of 2013 if the credit, scheduled to expire Dec. 31, is not extended by Congress.

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Andrew Stiles had a recent column in the Washington Free Beacon criticizing the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), but strangely ignoring incentives for other energy sources. For the record, a few facts Mr. Stiles fails to mention:

Wind's incentive is not a handout--it's provided in the form of a federal tax credit. Unless you assume that all the money people and companies earn in the private sector belongs to the government, a tax reduction is different from government subsidies or loan guarantees. A tax credit leaves more money in private hands, creating private investment and privately financed jobs. The PTC has helped the wind power industry attract $60 billion in private investment since 2005—clearly, it is a successful business tax ...

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FoxNews.com carried a recent column on dissatisfaction with small wind turbines in Nevada. While the article may have been factual, it failed to provide important context.

Although the small wind industry has installed more than 150,000 units in the U.S. in the last decade, it has continuously battled the problems of poor siting and untested turbine designs.  Even proven, reliable turbines, when they are installed in poor wind resources--like most urban environments--underperform expectations.  In addition, the wind is a very challenging operating environment for mechanical equipment, and untested designs often suffer failures.

The small wind industry, as Larry Sherwood of the Small Wind Certification Council ...

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Wind industry advocates and supporters held a rally yesterday in Boulder, Colo., to push for an extension of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), according to the Boulder County Business Report.  The event was hosted by Juwi Wind LLC, a locally based subsidiary of Juwi Group, an international wind farm developer, and cosponsored by The Renewable Energy Initiative, a national educational nonprofit that is headquartered in Boulder.

The article quoted Juwi Wind CEO Michael Rucker on the local economic impact if Congress fails to extend the PTC. Not only would 37,000 jobs be lost nationwide, Rucker said, but "The impact would be felt by ...

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The Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press, in an editorial today, calls on Congress to renew the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), saying in part, "The tax credit is not a gift. It is an investment in an industry that understands the need to improve its products and to bring down costs. Wind energy companies continue to strive to do so, but will not be able to sustain the effort if a partisan Congress does not extend the tax credit."

The editorial laments the fact that partisan maneuvering has created a challenging legislative environment and, to date, stalled extension of the PTC, noting that the credit "helped the industry grow into a viable one over the years and ... helped lower the cost ...

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The following letter to the editor of the Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal was not published.

A Sept. 7 story (“Arnold-Jones:  Energy Independence Within Next Five Years”) reports that 1st Congressional District Republican candidate Janice Arnold-Jones prefers rolling back regulations on oil and gas production to investments in renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

But the answer isn’t “either/or,” it’s “all-of-the-above.”  We need a full menu of methods to increase energy production that includes the power of wind.

Wind energy is a clean, abundant, and affordable source of energy—and it is available and deployable now.  An assessment by the U.S. Department of Energy under the George W. Bush Administration concluded ...

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In a letter published in the Sioux City (S.D.) Journal yesterday, the Chairman of the Winnebago Tribal Council, John Blackhawk, called for extension of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC).

Mr. Blackhawk noted that his tribe intends to take advantage of Nebraska's abundant winds: "An important new chapter in the history of tribal economic self-sufficiency is being written on Winnebago tribal land in Thurston County, Neb. The Winnebago Tribal Council has entered into an agreement with Bluestem Energy Solutions of Omaha to construct four to six wind turbines on tribal land that will provide enough power to ...

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The fact that wind and solar energy use virtually no water may become a deciding factor in their favor, according to Michael Liebreich, CEO of Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

In a white paper entitled "Water may top the case for renewables," Mr. Liebreich comments, "The other critical issue missing from the U.S. presidential election battle is water--particularly as U.S. Drought Monitor reports that nearly two-thirds of the nation is now suffering from moderate to exceptional drought conditions.


"Coal, gas and nuclear power generation all use large amounts of water. Of these, nuclear is the thirstiest – though many plants are on the coast, using seawater rather ...

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