Tax Credit in Doubt, Wind Power Industry Is Withering
Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

Gamesa, a major maker of components for wind turbines,  has all but shut down its factory in Fairless Hills, Pa., and furloughed 92 workers.
By DIANE CARDWELL
Published: September 20, 2012 174 Comments

FAIRLESS HILLS, Pa. — Last month, Gamesa, a major maker of components for wind turbines, completed the first significant order of its latest invention: a camper-size box that can capture the energy of slow winds, potentially opening up new parts of the country to wind power.
But by the time the last of the devices, worth more than $1.25 million, was hitched to a rail car, Gamesa had all but shut down its factory here and furloughed 92 of the workers who made them.

“We are all really sad,” said Miguel Orobiyi, 34, who worked as a mechanical assembler at the Gamesa plant for nearly five years. “I hope they call us back because they are really, really good jobs.”

Similar cutbacks are happening throughout the American wind sector, which includes hundreds of manufacturers, from multinationals that make giant windmills to smaller local manufacturers that supply specialty steel or bolts. In recent months, companies have announced almost 1,700 layoffs.

At its peak in 2008 and 2009, the industry employed about 85,000 people, according to the American Wind Energy Association, the industry’s principal trade group.

Many of those jobs have disappeared since, as wind companies have been buffeted by weak demand for electricity, stiff competition from cheap natural gas and cheaper options from Asian competitors. Chinese manufacturers, who can often underprice goods because of generous state subsidies, have moved into the American market and have become an issue in the larger trade tensions between the two countries. In July, the United States Commerce Department imposed tariffs on steel turbine towers from China after finding that manufacturers had been selling them for less than the cost of production.

And now, on top of the business challenges, the industry is facing a big political problem in Washington: the Dec. 31 expiration of a federal tax credit that makes wind power more competitive with other sources of electricity. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09.....ewanted=all&_r=0