 At the Good Jobs Green Jobs conference this week, it was a bit hard being a Virginian listening to Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and Minnesota State Senator Ellen Anderson talk specifically about all the great clean energy initiatives happening in their respective states. But the light at the end of the tunnel is that hopefully Virginia will some day be so progressive, and at the same time, learn from these states' trials and tribulations.
In 2007, Minnesota went from not just a voluntary RPS to a mandatory one that is quite progressive. By 2025, 25% of their electrical generation must come from renewable energy resources. On their state's largest utility, XCel Energy, they went even further, imposing 30% by 2025 of which 25% had to come from wind power generation.
That is potentially a lot of wind turbines! And there are over 8,000 components to each turbine - fiberglass, steel rods, ball bearings, gear boxes, etc., etc. For every one megawatt of installed capacity, wind energy produces 22 direct and indirect jobs. Five jobs are added for installing turbines and 17 jobs per megawatt (MW) are added related to manufacturing. (Source)
But alas, the clever Iowa, while Minnesota was negotiating its RPS, has been fast garnering to its state a number of wind power production facilities. New facilities opening in 2007 were Acciona (turbines) in West Branch, IA (110 jobs) and Siemens (blades) in Ft. Madison, IA (250 jobs). New facilities announced in 2007 include TPI Composites (blades) in Newton, IA (500 jobs). New facilities in Minnesota? Zero. Where a number of Iowa produced turbines will end up given its RPS mandate? In Minnesota.
The big lesson Virginia can learn here is that we have to be good multi-taskers: work on that good progressive RPS while also working on the economic development end of things in hopes of bringing wind power manufacturers to Virginia. Just as Delegate Joe Bouchard noted in his interview with Lowell here, this could be a manufacturing boon to Hampton Roads in particular with our offshore wind development and the offshore production already in the pipeline in Atlantic coast states such as New Jersey and Delaware. |
