N.Amer. Wind Farm Jobs to China?

Texas Wind Farm Funded by China, US Stimulus Package
Posted by Carol Sonenklar on November 4, 2009 at 5:31 pm





A worker builds wind turbines at a GE factory in Shenyang, China. (image: ge.com)
China has been investing in US clean energy projects and many are not happy about it. Last week it was the announcement that China-based ENN will be teaming up with Duke Energy to bid on contracts for utility-scale solar farms and large commercial solar projects in the US.

This week it’s China’s role in a large-scale wind power project in Texas, reports the New York Times. Many unhappy readers wrote to the newspaper after learning that China, along with a coalition of other investors, will be financing the project. The outrage is over the possibility that some of the monies might come from the $22 billion of the economic stimulus package marked for clean energy projects and, more importantly, new jobs.


Although the project will create a few hundred jobs in the US, many more—approximately 2,000—will be created in Shenyang, China, where the 240 new wind turbines will be manufactured by A-Power Energy Generation Systems. The 600-megawatt wind farm will be the largest Chinese investment in US renewable energy, and is expected to cost about $1.5 billion.




The angry letters prompted a politically expedient response from Cappy McGarr, a managing partner with U.S. Renewable Energy Group (US-REG), a partner in the Texas wind deal along with an Austin-based wind developer, Cielo Wind Power. McGarr emphasized that the wind farm will go far in helping the US attain energy independence. Without this international partnership, he said, the project would not have been possible, and the resulting jobs and revenue would not exist. He added that many of the parts for the turbines would be made by General Electric.


Reaction to the project has not been positive. Douglas McIntyre at Daily Finance called it “a sad day for the U.S. renewable energy business,” and said, “it’s a sign that the campaign for America to rely less on fossil fuels is gaining some traction, but the tools to allow it to happen will be marked ‘made in China.’”


The Wall Street Journal’s coverage was more neutral, pointing out that Chinese companies will be involved in the sort of higher-value services that white-collar America needs. Seeking Alpha wonders if one of the best places to work in the future may be at a US subsidiary of a Chinese company.


About 330 jobs will be created in Texas as a result of the project, according to the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory JEDI (Jobs and Economic Development Impact) analysis. About 734 indirect jobs will also be created.


Michael Kanellos at Greentech Media weighed in with a discussion about how the deal represents a significant shift from the past several years, when China wanted to remain anonymous about its investments. This, Kanellos maintains, is more proof that China wants to make a serious mark in green energy in the US.



But China has been making a mark in the renewable market in the US for some time; they were just much quieter about it. Russ Choma, a reporter with the Investigative Reporting Workshop, a nonprofit investigative journalism project attached to the American University School of Communication in Washington, told the New York Times that China has long dominated the solar panel manufacturing industry, of which 95 percent of its total output is exported to the United States and Europe.


Choma also noted that when it comes to stimulating the economy, it is the manufacturing that matters. He points to a 2004 study from the Renewable Energy Policy Project, a research institute based in Washington. The institute found that every 1,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity had the potential to generate as many as 4,300 jobs, of which about 3,000 are created at the manufacturing level.


But until that happens, we can expect to read more letters like this one that appeared in the Times.


“Thank you for killing the U.S. windmill industry,” wrote a reader from Chicago at the Times’ Green Inc. blog. “Thank-you, U.S. industrialists and financiers, for having us buy these things with financing and grants emanating from money borrowed from China.”