The Liberal Party wants to cut state funding for land-based wind turbines in favour of financing biogas, hydrogen and solar cell development. Several parties oppose the idea. ...Party group chairman Kristian Thulesen Dahl said consumers had paid huge additional charges on their electric bills for almost three decades, based on an ideological desire to promote the development of wind turbines.

Representatives of town governments want more of the financial pie from new industrial wind power developments, but many Cattaraugus County residents say they are financed by federal debt and long-range costs to the community will outweigh benefits. These sentiments dominated three public hearings on a tax-incentive proposal for wind developers by the Cattaraugus County Industrial Development Agency.

Lobbyist pressure will not weigh on a U.N. panel's decision whether to award carbon finance worth about 100 million euros ($144 million) to Chinese wind power projects, said the chair of the panel on Tuesday. ...The issue has caused long-running tension between the panel and project developers and brokers about the speed of approvals in the $6.5 billion global carbon offset market. Under the U.N.-led Kyoto Protocol's clean development mechanism, rich countries can buy rights to pollute by funding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in developing nations.

The Cattaraugus County Industrial Development Agency will seek public comments at 6:30 p. m. tonight, Wednesday and Thursday in hearings on proposed revisions to the agency's uniform tax exemption policy to accommodate wind farm developments. The revisions, if adopted, will set a schedule for payments-in-lieu-of-taxes.

Millions in federal stimulus money was expected for Locust Ridge II wind farm near Shenandoah even before President Obama took office in January, according to the company that developed the project. "When we were lobbying (the Obama transition team), we said, 'You need to do something or we can't utilize the tax credit,' " Rich Glick, government affairs director with international wind power company Iberdrola Renewables, said in a conference call with The Republican-Herald late Thursday afternoon. "It allowed us to complete Locust Ridge."

When three Eastern Oregon wind farms got big federal grants last week, the news brought a debate that has been simmering at the state level to a boil. Because wind farms are expensive, wind power company officials say, they need all the help they can get. But some say the recent grants serve as a high-profile reminder that Oregon doesn't need to spend more to woo wind farms. "Oregon is far more generous than other states," in terms of renewable energy credits, said Jody Wiser, chairwoman of Tax Fairness Oregon. "And it's not driving more building in Oregon; it's just giving money away."

Franklin County can expect to get $200,000 a year for 20 years to use for economic development in the unorganized territory in the tax break deal struck with the owner of the Kibby Wind Power Project going up near the Canadian border. This week, county commissioners moved forward on their plans to have Greater Franklin Development Corporation administer that annual amount.

Despite reports to the contrary, none of the $294 million in stimulus money awarded Tuesday to Spanish wind company Iberdrola Renewables will be spent in Pennsylvania, according to company officials. ...Johnson said Iberdrola applied for stimulus money using projects already completed, like Locust Ridge II, as examples. She said the federal government was looking at a company's track record of success.

Iberdrola SA, a Spanish company, will get most of the more than $500 million in economic recovery funds the Obama administration said today it is distributing to U.S. renewable-energy projects. Bilbao, Spain-based Iberdrola will get $236 million for wind farms in Texas, Oregon and Minnesota and an additional $59 million for a Pennsylvania wind project, U.S. officials said.

The feds have awarded $502 million under a new $3 billion program that gives the cash equivalent of a 30 percent investment tax credit. The U.S. Department of Treasury has doled out $502 million under a new program to provide grants to renewable energy developers who opt for cash instead of the 30 percent investment tax credit.

The Arizona Corporation Commission has a mandate in place requiring that at least 15 percent of the state's energy come from renewable sources by the year 2025. But despite its intention to wean the state off fossil fuels, the move has drawn vocal criticism from free-market advocates such as the Goldwater Institute, which claims the mandate will cost utility customers billions over the next 15 years.

Not only is Lewis County dealing with a decrease in sales tax revenue and a lack of information about how much state aid it will receive, it's also dealing with the loss of a major money maker. The Maple Ridge Wind Farm ...recently lost its certification as part of the state's Empire Development Zone, which means it lost critical tax breaks and other business incentives.

So many businesses are getting tax subsidies under Oregon's effort to promote alternative energy that the state now estimates it will spend $167 million on them in 2009-11, up from $68 million it gave out in similar tax breaks in 2007-09. The higher spending demonstrates the increasing popularity of Oregon's Business Energy Tax Credit. But it comes at time when other state programs face cutbacks, and that's giving some lawmakers heartburn.

It might be tempting to imagine some sort of collegiate atmosphere among the developers of renewable technologies as they lead the charge towards a low carbon economy. But don't bank on it. Professional jealousies and business rivalries simmer below the surface and are often not contained. ...But the biggest schism highlighted in the past week is between "the intermittents" (the wind industry) and the "baseload" renewables (most of the rest).

The latest generation of wind turbines needs bigger blades than the 140-foot-long, 6-ton models that Gamesa Technology Corp. Inc. has been making at its factory in Fairless Hills. So company officials announced 184 layoffs in January and said the blade work would be transferred to a larger Gamesa plant in the center of the state, near Altoona. And just that fast, manufacturing jobs that Spain-based Gamesa had delivered to this region less than three years earlier - aided by more than $10 million in financial incentives from Harrisburg - were gone

After last week's meeting between the Adair County Commission and Trade Wind Energy, it was apparent more discussion would need to be made to bring wind energy to the county. Over the last six months, Project Manager Rob Northway has been developing a plan to build a 14-mile long wind farm that could cost up to $300 million and accommodate nearly 500 megawatts. The only problem is funding.

State utility regulators today authorized an auction to distribute $95 million to new power plants fueled by the wind, the sun, biomass or other renewable sources. The auction will be the fourth conducted under a standing state mandate to derive 25 percent of New York's electricity from renewable energy sources by 2013. Members of the state Public Service Commission ...noted that the time is right for new renewable energy projects.

The state renewable energy law that made it feasible for controversial new "wind parks'' will also cost New Hampshire consumers in higher electricity bills. They may pay $2 billion by the year 2025 under the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) -- an extra $5 a month, a University of New Hampshire study concludes. But these are just estimates. The state's consumer advocate and utility companies say there really is no way at this point to figure the actual cost.

An almost two-year fee-free period for wind farm development will not be long enough for NSW to catch up to other states, the Greens say. Premier Nathan Rees has announced incentives to boost investment in clean energy generation, including moves to fast track planning decisions relating to wind farms. The development fees that are associated with such projects will also be waived until June 30, 2011.

Freedom residents who hoped the wind turbines on Beaver Ridge would bring a lower tax bill got a surprise this year as other factors sucked up most of the windfall. ...Freedom town officials, with help from the state, valued the Beaver Ridge development at $9.7 million and the Central Maine Power transmission lines running up the ridge at an additional $480,000. But the value added to the town made barely a dent in the mill rate, which went from 17 to 15.5.