Tax credit worry hampers U.S. wind industry

Lack of long-term policy hurts investment in new equipment

Lack of a long-term federal tax credit continues to hamper the wind farm industry and fosters a boom-and-bust cycle of construction, developers said on Monday at a conference on financing renewable energy.

The industry is also grappling with the cost of wind turbines rising at least 20 percent in the past year due to higher steel prices and truck transportation costs, developers said.

“The greatest opportunity for sustained growth in this industry is market certainty,” said Raimund Grube, regional managing director for PPM Energy, a division of Scottish Power Plc and a leading developer of U.S. wind farms.

“And that market certainty, in the near term, is going to come from a long-term, three- to five-year production tax credit,” he added.

Reuters