German savings banks are handing out more loans to renewable-energy projects as corporate rivals retreat from financing the world's biggest solar-panel market. The 438 savings banks financed 45 percent of the 5.3 billion euros ($7 billion) invested in solar and wind power projects in 2008, while loans from major corporate lenders including Deutsche Bank AG shrank to 0.8 percent.

This year has not been a good one for renewable energy, despite promises by politicians all round the globe to make it the centrepoint of economic recovery. Vestas chief executive Ditlev Engel began 2009 by warning that the economic downturn had left it with a 15% excess in global manufacturing capacity.

A layoff in Lexington appears to contradict President Obama's initiative to generate employment through increased green energy production. Officials blame bad timing for the decision to cut jobs at PPG Industries, a Pittsburgh-based specialty products manufacturer that supplies to the wind energy industry. The company announced Friday that 110 of the 420 employees at its Lexington fiberglass plant will be let go by June 30.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are trying to pass House Bill 1273 and the bill says that money given by wind energy farms to wealthy districts need to be part of "Robin Hood." "Robin Hood" will then distribute the money through out other districts. Now some school districts in the Big Country can be heavily affected if House Bill 1273 passes.

It's a slow process, but for people looking for a green job in the plummeting economy, the jobs are out there. But there's just not too many of them -- not yet, anyway. While electrical workers are thrilled at the prospect of having jobs related to those wind turbines, fewer people are needed to run 100 wind mills -- roughly 20, compared to the hundreds who might be needed to run a coal-fired plant, like the one recently denied by the Wisconsin Public Service commission late last year.

Blumenfeld isn't the only one feeling the pinch of the recession's credit crunch. Despite the Obama administration's spotlight on renewables and $54 billion in clean energy incentives packaged into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, startup renewable energy companies are struggling to get new projects off the ground. Jeff Dalebroux, a Chicago-based finance attorney who works with infrastructure and project finance at Dykema Gosset PLLC, said the problem stems from a host of issues.

[Dalton Utilities president and CEO Don Cope] said he had listened last week to a presentation by the Edison Electric Institute, an organization that all of the large, shareholder-owned utilities belong to, on the possibility of legislation capping carbon emissions produced by fossil fuels such as coal and oil. "Their estimate is that it will cost the average household in the United States between $3,000 and $6,000 per year," he said.

Clean energy has a dirty secret. It isn't cheap. Consumers already are starting to feel at least a modest pinch in their electric bills. The impact is expected to grow in the next few years as utilities accelerate their investments to meet state quotas requiring a portion of clean energy in their generation mix.

Austin Democrats are hammering out a compromise with party leadership that would boost wind tax revenue for townships at the expense of school districts. Reps. Robin Brown and Jeanne Poppe have been fighting to restore a wind tax benefit for schools set to expire on July 1. Last year, Minnesota schools received $146,000 from the wind energy production tax.

The amount invested in British renewable energy schemes, including wind, solar and wave power, fell from £377 million during the first three months of last year to £79 million during the same period this year, according to figures from New Energy Finance, a research group that monitors industry trends. The figures have raised fresh questions over the Government's ability to fulfil its pledge to slash Britain's carbon emissions and produce more than one third of the country's electricity from green energy by 2020.

Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG, Germany's third-biggest utility, says financial investors in the country's wind parks will follow a move by Babcock & Brown Ltd. and begin selling assets this year. "Investors are coming together to force sales," Dirk Guesewell, managing director at the utility's renewable energy unit, said in an interview in Frankfurt yesterday. "The small guys are saying ‘just get out'."

Property values are soaring in this West Texas community, and the reason is obvious. Looming on the northern horizon, hundreds of new wind turbines dot the once-barren hills. Ordinarily, much of the tax dollars generated by the turbines would go to the state's "Robin Hood" school finance plan, which requires property-rich districts to share their wealth with those less fortunate. But that won't happen in Sterling City, at least not if school officials have their way.

Windmills and solar panel arrays have become symbols of America's growing interest in alternative energy. Yet as Congress begins debating new rules to restrict carbon dioxide emissions and promote electricity produced from renewable sources, an underlying question is how much more Americans will be willing to pay to harness the wind and the sun.

Subsidizing renewable energy in the U.S. may destroy two jobs for every one created if Spain's experience with windmills and solar farms is any guide. For every new position that depends on energy price supports, at least 2.2 jobs in other industries will disappear, according to a study from King Juan Carlos University in Madrid. U.S. President Barack Obama's 2010 budget proposal contains about $20 billion in tax incentives for clean-energy programs.

The Cattaraugus County Legislature will be represented on a panel that will work with town and school delegates to set up a tax-exemption policy for the Cattaraugus County Industrial Development Agency’s wind farm projects. A blanket state tax exemption for wind farms and other alternative energy systems was lifted in the county by the Legislature in 2008 following a lengthy debate.

Danish wind turbines are now producing so much energy that they may have to be stopped at night in order to avoid excess production duties. ..."When prices go negative, wind turbines will probably have equipment installed so that you can reduce production," Marketing Manager Nicolaj Nørgaard Petersen tells Jyllands-Posten.

Ontario shouldn't take the head office decision as a slight, said Laferrere. "The reason we chose Montreal is that it is already the centre of the wind industry in Canada," he said, pointing to the existence of other wind-turbine manufacturers around the area. "It's good to be in the same place as the others if you want to hire people." Laferrere suggested the concern was overblown. "This isn't a huge announcement here, it's just a structural and organizational announcement."

Executives from Noble Environmental Power said that they can raise the $275 million the project costs but that they have been hampered by tumultuous financial markets, according to testimony filed Tuesday. The company asked the state Site Evaluation Committee to allow it to proceed on the condition it proves its financing plan before construction begins. ...An investment banker testifying for the state Tuesday wrote that he did not believe Granite Reliable nor Noble have a plan to finance the park. The company has not shown how it will find lenders and investors.

Minnesota's wind-energy industry is about to get a turbo-charged boost from the $789 billion economic stimulus package ...An extension of the production tax credit to three years plus the addition of an investment tax credit will inject new life and urgency into projects that were starved for financing, tax experts said. And the Energy Office in the Minnesota Department of Commerce estimated the bill could inject about $220 million into Minnesota.