Extend PTC, help wind power create U.S. jobs

Wood, formerly a construction worker for 18 years, decided the time had come to make a change when he found himself out of work for a year. Having seen a wind farm in northern Michigan while on a hunting trip, he enrolled in a training course at the Michigan Institute for Aviation and Technology (MIAT), also in Canton. After graduating, he landed a job with Danotek, which makes generators and converters for wind turbines.

"From where I stand," Wood writes in part, "it’s pretty simple. There are many workers like me in Michigan who have had a hard time finding a steady and rewarding job, and we need a lot more companies like Danotek with factories building major components for wind turbines that can generate an endless supply of clean, renewable energy for this country. And for that to happen, both large and small wind companies need business certainty to be able to make investments in America and hire new American workers … " He adds that an extension of the PTC, currently scheduled to expire at the end of this year, is needed to provide that certainty because "We need all the clean energy and new manufacturing jobs we can get."

By Tom Gray, www.awea.org/blog