AWEA Blog - Colorado rally seeks extension of PTC

The event was hosted by Juwi Wind LLC, a locally based subsidiary of Juwi Group, an international wind farm developer, and cosponsored by The Renewable Energy Initiative, a national educational nonprofit that is headquartered in Boulder.

The article quoted Juwi Wind CEO Michael Rucker on the local economic impact if Congress fails to extend the PTC.

Not only would 37,000 jobs be lost nationwide, Rucker said, but “The impact would be felt by turbine manufacturers, their suppliers, researchers and engineers … Many of those jobs are located in the Boulder area, which has become a growing research and development hub for the industry.

In addition to juwi Wind, which employs 20 in Boulder, wind turbine manufacturer Vestas has a research center in Louisville and Renewable Energy Systems Americas is headquartered in Broomfield.”

Brandon Rattiner, director of Sen. Mark Udall’s (D-Colo.) Denver regional office, also spoke, saying that “Passing the PTC should be a no-brainer. In Colorado alone, the wind energy industry supports 6,000 jobs and 75,000 nationwide. Vestas alone has production plants in Windsor, Pueblo and Brighton. These are good-paying jobs that rely on our highly educated and skilled workers … Were it not for the PTC, these jobs would be in China, South America or somewhere else overseas.”

The PTC provides an income tax credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 10 years of electricity production from utility-scale wind turbines. It is set to expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress extends it first. A recent study by Navigant Consulting found that extending the Production Tax Credit will allow the industry to grow to 100,000 jobs in just four years, while an expiration would kill 37,000 jobs within a year.

A House bill seeking to extend the PTC has 110 cosponsors, including 25 Republicans, while a similar Senate bill is cosponsored by seven Senators, including three Republicans. PTC extension efforts have received the endorsement of a broad coalition of more than 370 members, including the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the Western Governors’ Association. A PTC extension also has the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Governors Association, and the bipartisan Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition, which includes 23 Republican and Democratic Governors from across the U.S. A PTC extension has been endorsed by a number of newspapers across the country, including the Des Moines Register, the Denver Post, the Daily Oklahoman, the Toledo Blade, the Houston Chronicle, the San Antonio Express-News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Chicago Sun-Times, and The New York Times.