They’re Coming to America

At an increasing rate, large-scale renewables plants and installations are appearing in America. Last month we reported on plans for a 280-megawatt concentrating solar power (CSP) plant to be built in Arizona by Abengoa Solar of Spain. And earlier this month, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson helped break ground near Albuquerque for a CSP and PV equipment manufacturing plant to be built by Schott AG of Germany.

image courtesy of Schott Solar 

The activity is not limited to solar. Vestas of Denmark, the world’s leading supplier of wind power solutions, is building a turbine blade plant in Windsor, Colorado. With this activity, it is in the company of such players as Gamesa of Spain (Pennsylvania), Suzlon of India (Minnesota), Siemens of Germany and U.S.-based Clipper (Iowa). And behind this group in the U.S. market are coming companies with names like Acciona, Ecotechnia and Fuhrlander.

Do we see a theme here? Of course we do. With the exception of Clipper, all these names are of companies that have firmly established themselves overseas in a business that will only increase in importance in years to come. And having done so, they have expanded into the world’s potentially most lucrative market—the U.S. This is the reverse of a process in which American industry usually likes to take the lead, but which is not happening in this case. Even GE, one of the leading manufacturers of wind turbines in the world, can claim less than half of the domestic market.

Brian Lynch, spokesman for Schott, gives us a clue to one significant underlying reason for this phenomenon when he says: “Schott have enjoyed strong government support for developing their business domestically. That’s been so successful that overseas expansion was the next logical step.”

The same can be said for the whole spectrum of overseas entities that have taken root in the U.S. Foreign governments seem to have not only a more comprehensive view of the need for renewables, but also a longer-term attitude to encouraging industrial development to meet that need.

If we in the U.S. can only manage to renew tax credits for renewables a year or two at a time, we shouldn’t be surprised if foreign companies grow strong enough to dominate the industry—both overseas and in our own backyard. Their governments are serving up protein-rich food for their fledgling industries while we’re sprinkling crumbs—and sometimes missing feeding time altogether. As for Congress, it seems more intent on preserving our energy industry in its fossil fuel/foreign supplier-dependent state than on building a foundation on which renewables companies can grow and compete in the global market.

We’re trying—or should be trying—to extricate ourselves from a situation of dependency on foreign oil suppliers. If we’re not careful, we could find that we’ve simply exchanged that dependency for another, as well-funded and well-established firms from Europe and Asia establish and maintain market share at the expense of undernourished U.S. companies.