Green Energy Needs Workers — Renewable Power Firms Seek Renewed Tax Breaks

By Brian Skoloff

When 1,800 workers lost their jobs after a Maytag appliance factory and headquarters closed last year in the small town of Newton, Iowa, a wind turbine blade company saw opportunity – an available, skilled workforce in the middle of one of America’s hardiest wind energy production regions.

TPI Composites Inc. is building a new plant there as the energy industry aims for a cleaner, more-sustainable future. With proper incentives, thousands of “green-collar jobs” could be created, from ethanol production to wind turbines and solar panels, and all the maintenance and construction to support them, industry officials said.

TPI used to build boats but switched to turbines in 2001 for the “major growth opportunity,” said Steve Lockard, CEO of the Phoenix – based company. The idea, he said, is to “transform the workforce away from the Maytag-type jobs of the past into jobs that can withstand the test of time going forward.”

However, advocates and executives say training is key to making sure the industry has enough skilled workers to make it into a real economic engine, and are pushing for more lucrative tax breaks, much like oil companies already receive, to make it profitable.

With the economy sputtering, even presidential candidates are getting on board. Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both say they would funnel federal money into green industry job- training .

GOP candidates, too, all have plans to stimulate the clean energy sector, but none has specifically addressed workforce training for it.

For people such as Robert Hughes, who worked at Maytag for 21 years, none of it really matters. He has been out of work since October. At 55, he made $22 an hour on the assembly line. TPI promised to create 500 jobs within three years at a base pay of $12.25 an hour, quite a cut for Hughes, who says he might apply there anyway.

Overall, unions see “an opportunity to restore some of the 3million jobs in manufacturing we’ve lost in the last seven years,” said Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council.

But while wind and solar have been seeing steady increases in production and investment, federal tax breaks set to expire at the end of the year and an expected skilled worker shortage could stall growth, experts say.

“Already companies that have invested millions of dollars in this industry are getting nervous,” said Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association.

An energy bill President Bush signed in 2007 left out clean- energy tax breaks. The bill does authorize $125 million for green- collar job-training programs, but the industry says that isn’t enough.

Without prompt action, renewable industry experts say next year’s market growth likely won’t look so good. The wind association said that when previous tax credits expired in 2004, the amount of wind capacity installed fell by 77 percent.

“You look at a wind turbine,” George Sterzinger, executive director of the Washington-based Renewable Energy Policy Project. “It’s got a whole bunch of parts. Somebody makes the blades, somebody makes the tower, somebody makes the gear boxes, the electronic controls,” Sterzinger said. “Those parts can come from China, India – or from Buffalo.”

The wind energy industry employs about 45,000 people in the U.S. and had $9 billion in investment in 2007, a 45-percent jump from 2006, Swisher said.

Swisher estimates that by 2030, nearly a half-million new jobs could be created in the wind industry, in manufacturing, construction and operation.

The solar industry, too, is growing. Last year set a record with 314 megawatts of new solar capacity installed in the U.S., said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association. That’s enough to power about 80,000 homes, he said.

The market was worth just about $200 million five years ago. Last year, it topped $2 billion, Resch said.

“These are jobs that are really the backbone of the economy, jobs like roofers, carpenters, electricians and plumbers,” he said. “But the federal government is completely asleep at the switch here.”

Originally published by Brian Skoloff Associated Press .

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