The instability of the financial markets had caused Noble Environmental Power to "scale back its development plans for 2009" and "(cut) back its workforce." Immediately, construction of a 14-turbine windpark planned for the town of Bellmont will be suspended until July or August of 2009, Bellmont Town Supervisor Bruce Russell said Friday. ...To date, the company has laid foundation for the town's 14 turbines and installed wiring, he said.

Renewable energy projects, which can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to construct, are singularly dependent on a small cadre of institutional investors to put up money in return for tax credits and early electricity generation revenue. And many of the biggest backers of renewable projects are on shaky ground or have disappeared altogether, saddled by bad bets in the housing and consumer credit markets. Among them: bankrupt Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers Holdings.

A proposed 120-metre wind turbine would knock 50 per cent off the value of thousands of nearby homes, an action group claims. Save Our Skyline (SOS) was formed in response to a planned turbine taller than Wakefield Cathedral at Coca Cola's warehouse at Wakefield 41 Industrial Park. SOS claims 3,800 homes within a mile radius would see 54 per cent knocked of their value by the turbine. The information comes from a recent study by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.

Goldman Sachs on Tuesday slapped sell ratings on the two largest publicly traded U.S. solar power firms, with the broker flagging the possibility of oversupply as overseas subsidies dry up in the face of the global economic meltdown. Goldman analyst Michael Molnar forecast "strong headwinds for valuation" as he downgraded shares of First Solar (FSLR) to conviction sell from buy and SunPower (SPWRA) to sell from buy.

In newspaper advertisements, ApCo says customers who sign up are "investing in a future of energy that's both clean and green." ...But ApCo has already agreed to buy the green power. ApCo contracted for 75 megawatts of energy from the Camp Grove Wind Farm in central Illinois and 100 megawatts from the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in western Indiana. ApCo already buys power from Summersville Hydro in West Virginia, and has plans to buy from the Beech Ridge Wind Energy project in Greenbrier County when it is finished. So what's the benefit if ApCo customers sign up, given that the company's already buying the green power?

KTVO has discovered a conflict of interest in the Sullivan County wind project. Commissioner James Howard is on the list of landowners that stand to profit financially from having a wind mill on their property. Plus, KTVO has obtained an eight-pages of document show that Howard and his wife Linda signed a lease option agreement on the Shuteye Creek Wind Project. Howard confirmed that he has an interest in the project.

Senate leaders hoping to salvage the $700 billion financial bailout package accepted a higher limit for insured bank deposits - and tax breaks for businesses and alternative energy - in a bid to win House approval and send the legislation to President George W. Bush by the end of the week. ...The lawmakers were gambling that the tax package would appeal to lawmakers who helped sink the measure in the House on Monday, without driving off Democrats who have opposed extending tax incentives without offsetting spending cuts elsewhere.

In the past two years, solar energy has become an especially hot spot in the clean energy sector. In 2007, solar energy start-ups raised the lion's share of new investments in the sector, or roughly $600 million in capital raised in 39 deals. And then came the credit crisis. Already companies have pulled IPOs, and worry is growing that the nascent industry could be choked off just as it is starting to take off. The question now: How bad will the hangover be? Or, more important, how long will it last?

So are federal subsidies still a life-or-death question for the industry? Maybe not anymore. Richard Morrison, chief executive of Molded Fiber Glass Companies, which makes wind-turbine blades for General Electric, told us: "The failure of the U.S. Congress to extend the production credit is not a good thing. Now how bad of a thing is it? It's hard to predict because things are a little bit different now in 2008 than back in the 1990s when it was a fledgling industry. There is a real business here and a big business and a growing business."

A tax credit driving the wind industry seemed to be on its way when the Senate approved it overwhelmingly this week, but a measure to extend it hit a speed bump Thursday in the House. The fate of the wind energy production tax credit expiring Dec. 31 is uncertain as lawmakers wrangle over two versions of the latest bill including an extension. An industry advocate found lawmakers' arguments over paying for the legislation absurd in light of billions spent to shore up crumbling Wall Street titans and a $700 billion proposal to stave off economic collapse.

The Democratic-led House today approved a $60 billion tax package designed largely to spur investment in renewable energy, and funded in part by assessing higher taxes on oil and gas companies. But by refusing to go along with a carefully crafted Senate bill, the House has thrown into question whether a final tax package will be approved before lawmakers recess this weekend until after the November elections.

Officials with the Maine Power Connection wrapped up a weeklong tour of Aroostook County on Thursday morning, addressing business leaders, legislators and community members about a proposal to build a new $625 million transmission line from central Maine to connect northern Maine to the New England electric grid. The project would bring wind turbine projects online and close a 25-mile gap between the Maine Public Service system lines in Houlton and the Maine Electric Power Co. ..."Northern Maine customers will be held harmless," he stressed. "Northern Maine delivery rates can't go up - that is our goal. If that doesn't happen, this project is a no-go."

Officials in Sullivan County agree a wind farm would be a positive addition, but they don't agree on how much they should do to accommodate the company that would bring it there. The county commission wants to create an enhanced enterprise zone to give Tradewind Energy the tax incentives they say they need. County Clerk Mike Hepler and Assessor Karen LaFever say the enhanced enterprise zone would leave the county short changed. "To sell out too cheap is not representing the public interest, it's representing the private interest. I was elected to represent the public interest," Hepler says.

Denouncing a proposed $45 million Minnesota Power rate hike as "exorbitant," Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson on Friday encouraged the Duluth utility's customers to attend public hearings and make their opposition known. "Families and small business are struggling to make ends meet in the face of rising prices for energy, health care, gas, food and a troubled economy," Swanson said in a news release, which characterized the utility's proposal as unnecessary.

Cattaraugus County has retained its ability to tax alternative energy systems - including wind farms, solar energy systems and on-farm methane digesters - with a 16-2 vote for passage of a local law Tuesday. The law applies to facilities within the county, including as many as four potential wind farm projects under consideration, and effectively disarms a state tax code provision exempting these energy sources from taxes. ...The vote came after residents and elected officials from the towns of Freedom, Machias and Farmersville stated their opposition in a 45-minute public hearing. Most said they were told the IDA's payment-in-lieu-of- taxes (PILOT) agreements will unfairly take a share of the wind farms' monetary payments.

The Senate today is expected to approve a $17 billion measure that would extend tax credits for renewable energy sources by hitting up oil and gas companies for higher taxes. ...The Bush administration opposes the language that targets the oil and gas industry. "At a time when consumers are already struggling with the high price of gasoline and diesel fuel, Congress should not put additional upward pressure on fuel prices," the White House's Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved about $18 billion of renewable-energy tax credits after repeated failed attempts to do so this year. The 93-2 vote cleared a major hurdle for extending a set of tax credits for businesses and residents investing in renewable energy, from building and operating power plants to installing small wind turbines on residential properties. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have tried and failed numerous times this year to extend the tax incentives, which are set to expire at the end of 2008.

The U.S. Senate could vote as early as Thursday on an energy bill that would provide $17 billion in renewable-energy tax incentives. Solar, wind and other renewable-energy investors and executives have been anxiously waiting for Congress to extend a set of investment tax credits that would offset 30 percent of the cost of a solar or wind-farm project. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have tried and failed numerous times this year to extend the tax incentives, which are set to expire at the end of this year.

The head of GE Energy, the conglomerate's unit that makes everything from wind turbines to nuclear reactors, flew down to Washington again today to plead with senators to extend tax credits for renewable energy. The credits, still crucial to making clean energy competitive, are set to expire at the end of the year, despite at least eight tries so far to renew them. ..."I'm prepared to come down every week to say the same thing," he told us. "If the production tax credit expires in the U.S., the wind industry will collapse. As the clock ticks, you put jobs at risk."

With the looming possibility of Wind Energy Conversion Properties (wind farms) in Fremont County, officials are thinking ahead and taking action. Fremont County Assessor Karen Berry approached the Fremont County Board of Supervisors on Aug. 14 and proposed an ordinance be placed on the books pertaining to the assessment of wind farms. If the ordinance is passed, wind towers will be a local assessment when, and if, they come to Fremont County. "If we don't pass this ordinance and wind towers come in, they will be considered a utility and the state assesses utilities.