And could be up to 37,000 jobs lost if Congress doesn't act.
Where is Congress on extending the tax credit for our wind industry?
As I pointed out years ago, we're not going to have an alternative energy industry here with the attendent green jobs without long term tax breaks.
Vic Abate expects that many makers of gearboxes, towers, and blades for wind turbines will go under next year. He should know: As vice president of General Electric’s (GE) renewable energy business, Abate is the executive who will seal their fates.
With a federal tax credit that subsidizes the U.S. wind industry set to expire at the end of 2012, GE is scrutinizing its supply chain. That’s significant as the Fairfield (Conn.)-based company is the market leader in wind, with a 29.4 percent share in 2011, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). Uncompetitive vendors will be culled, Abate says, while stronger suppliers will be offered operational and financial assistance. “We’re in the process of picking winners and losers,” he says.
A looming industry shakeout may give Abate an opportunity to wring better terms from his 200-plus vendors. The company might have as many as 10 suppliers for certain components now, a figure that may dwindle to just three once he is finished pruning.
Manufacturers of turbines and other components will shed an estimated 10,000 workers in the U.S. this year in anticipation of a slowdown in orders, says the AWEA. If Congress doesn’t extend the production tax credit, that figure will hit 37,000 next year—about half the industry’s workforce. The incentive, first offered in 1992, grants owners of wind farms a credit equal to 2.2¢ per kilowatt-hour for electricity produced over a 10-year period. Extending the break for just one more year would cost $4.1 billion in forgone tax revenue over a decade, according to estimates from Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), one of the sponsors of a bill that would preserve the credit, has said he expects no decision until after the November elections.
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