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Oregon is orienting much of its Stimulus Plan cash towardenergy efficiency, saving the state millions, while growingthe state’s renewable energy portfolio through a windtechnician training program, and business energy taxcredit that returns 35% of eligible project costs for projectsthat invest in energy conservation, recycling, renewableenergy resources, and less-polluting transportation fuels.Massachusetts: University Spinoffs toCommercial ViabilityIn 2008, Governor Deval Patrick signed the MassachusettsGreen Jobs Act, creating the Massachusetts CleanEnergy Fund. The Fund provides grant money to stimulateclean energy companies, create green jobs, and providejob training programs to ensure all people have access tonew green jobs.The Fund’s Executive Director, Patrick Cloney, discussedMassachusetts’s approach to renewable energy development.Home to several high-profile research institutions,Massachusetts cannot provide large financial incentives,but it can shrink the growth calendar for companies, andfacilitate better communication between research andcommercial entities.Founded in 2004, the Massachusetts Technology TransferCenter is one of the state’s multiple business developmentprograms that help young research projects spin offinto private investment. Part of the Fund’s goals areaccelerating “ecosystem” interaction between entities ofvarious sizes, and navigating between municipalities.Some states have implemented economicdevelopment plans utilizing renewable energyresources.Texas: A Workforce BoomDoug Ridge, Director of Employer Initiatives with the TexasWorkforce Commission, spoke to the group about Texas’swind boom and the resultant “bump” in job creation, withsolar right behind. With more wind capacity than any otherUS state, growing at the rate of one utility-scale installationa week, it is no surprise that Texas’s renewableenergy workforce grew by 130% between 2000 and 2007.The resultant economic benefits revert not only to installers,but also to landowners and manufacturers.Kansas: A Rising Wind PowerhouseEnvisioning the manufacturing development a renewableenergy boom in Kansas would create, Lieutenant GovernorMark Parkinson of Kansas pointed out that 200,000turbines “means 200,000 generators, gearboxes, and600,000 blades,” a huge manufacturing opportunity.Renewable energy is an ecosystem. – PatrickCloney, Executive Director, Massachusetts CleanEnergy FundKansas is increasingly realizing its huge wind capacity,going from 3 installed megawatts in 1997 to 365 megawattsin 2007.. In 2008, 900 MW were installed, and inJanuary 2009, alone, 1,000 more. To Parkinson,renewables can be scaled by regulators, making fossilpower artificially more expensive and green less so—or bynaturally achieving economies of scale in the marketplace.A national RPS is a difficult political proposition but wouldbe very effective, and subsidized research can help theprivate sector lower costs more rapidly.Economic ChallengesRenewable energy markets continue to besensitive to volatility.Barriers exist for developers under uncertainenergy, credit, and carbon prices. It is moredifficult to evaluate the economic risks associatedwith various project ownerships and financialstructures under the current market state.The transmission of renewable energy fromremote generation facilities to higher densityload centers is one of the greatest challengeswe are facing.There are many economic barriers to large-scale renewableenergy adoption, not least of which is that of transmission.Transmission constraints limit the deliverycapacity for renewable energy, with new transmissionfacing high integration costs associated with accommodatinga large amount of intermittent resources.Changing supply dynamics play a critical role inthe renewable energy marketplace.Ethan Zindler of New Energy Finance spoke on thechanging market dynamics of the renewable energy world.The period between 2004 and 2007 saw historic, nowunderstood to be dangerous, amounts of leverage in theAmerican Council On Renewable EnergyExecutive Summary Report 46