US wind sector impatient for stimulus funds

By Sheila McNulty in Houston
Published: May 3 2009 20:36

Project delays and cancellations across the renewable energy industry mean that this year’s gathering at the world’s biggest annual wind energy conference and exhibition will be keen for word of stimulus funds to help get projects back on track.
Investment in renewables has been delayed or even withdrawn as the credit crisis has stemmed the flow of capital. The economic recession has cut into sales of clean technology, while plunging prices of oil and natural gas have rendered such projects less economically viable.

The Obama administration’s economic stimulus package includes $56bn in grants and tax breaks for US clean energy projects over the next 10 years and a budget of $15bn a year to fund renewable energy programmes.
Yet the US government has not worked out how to deliver those funds; none of that money has been seen by the wind-power industry.
Many in the sector do not have the certainty they would like that they will be recipients, said Rob Gramlich, policy director of the American Wind Energy Association, which is organising this week’s conference in Chicago.
He said: “There is cautious optimism now that could turn to nervousness unless the industry sees the actual dollars start flowing”.
That issue is expected to be addressed by Ken Salazar, secretary of the US Department of the Interior, a keynote speaker at the forum.
Other speakers include Vic Abate, vice president for Renewables at GE Energy; Ditlev Engel, president and chief executive of Vestas Wind Systems; Michael Polsky, of Invenergy; Don Furman, senior vice president of development, transmission and policy at Iberdrola Renewables; and General Wesley Clark, chairman of Emergya Wind Technologies Americas.
Interest in wind energy in the US has been stoked in part by T. Boone Pickens, the oilman who has made giving the US an alternative to importing fossil fuels a personal mission.
He has formed Mesa Power to build the world’s biggest wind farm in Texas, with 2,700 turbines generating enough power for 1m US homes. And while he has “lost some people” with the downturn, turbines are due for delivery in 2011.
He said: “We have not lost any enthusiasm”.
Even with dire economic conditions, the wind energy industry installed more than 2,800MW of US generating capacity in the first quarter of this year, with projects completed in 15 states.
Denise Bode, AWEA chief executive said: “These brand-new wind projects shine a ray of hope on our economy today. But the nation still lacks the long-term signal that is needed to build up renewable energy on a large scale.”
That would come with a Renewable Electricity Standard, which the industry wants Congress to pass, requiring utilities to generate 25 per cent of their power from renewables by 2025. That would support massive growth of wind energy in the US.
Wind energy meets only about 1 per cent of US energy needs. Yet the desire to increase that capacity is apparent – attendance at the AWEA conference is expected to be about 20,000, up from 13,000 last year.
GE’s Mr Abate said customers for his company’s wind turbines were not cancelling orders but rather postponing them, underlining that they still believed in wind.
Yet, he added, the industry was growing impatient for stimulus funds. After all, he noted, of the 21 financial institutions that GE Energy had as partners on wind projects before the crisis, only four remained.
Mr Abate said: “There is definitely a sense of urgency on behalf of the industry to get the money out. To date, not a dime has reached our customers.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009