The 2010 Breeze Feels Good

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope this year is a happy and healthy one for us all.

So with the new year upon us, we can now look back on 2010. It is behind us, but we can feel its breeze upon our backs. This is possible with the one-year extension of the Section 1603 Investment Tax Credit for renewable energy. How did-does-will this help the wind industry?

-Saves 85,000 jobs

-Gives the wind industry access to tax credits (something oil and gas industries swim in)

-Projected to increase wind project installations by roughly 50 percent

Says who? Says the CEO of the American Wind and Energy Association, Denise Bode. (Here)

“While the industry saw the all-too-real impacts of having no long-term U.S. policies toward renewable energy, the industry nevertheless made significant advances in 2010,” said Bode.

The long term solution Bode and the rest of the wind industry is looking for is the implementation of a Renewable Energy Standard (RES). This would call for each state's utilities to derive a standard amount of electricity from renewable energy sources. With this year's congress it's most likely to be difficult for a RES to be passed, but the efforts will continue. Still, 2010 did see significant advances:

-The industry also reached over 50% domestic content for turbines installed in the U.S.

-The market for smaller turbines grew 15%

-A Harris poll in October 2010 found 87% of Americans want more wind energy, bearing out results in April 2010 from a bipartisan team of pollsters who found 89 percent support for more wind energy, including 84 percent of Republicans

-A total of 37 states now have at least some utility-scale wind power installed within their borders

With some successes, the U.S. is still behind China and the European Union in wind installation. And with the third quarter of 2010 being the slowest quarter since 2007 for the U.S., we have a long way to go.

So let's cheers to the 2011 and hope we can report back with some good news blowin' in the wind.