When in 2005 the federal Production Tax Credits (PTC) for companies producing renewable power was renewed, it sent a message far and wide that the renewable energy industry was worth getting into, with the promise of profitability, energy efficiency, and social/environmental good karma all in one tidy package. The following are some of the latest ways weve seen this collective foray into renewable energies take shape.
The Workforce: Businesses are given tax credits for changing over their sources of electricity to certain renewable energies, steadily increasing the demand for workers in every area of the industry from research and development to manufacturing to distribution to installation, service and support.
More and more states are taking the federal governments lead and implementing their own public incentive programs and benefit funds to encourage greater renewable energy usage, with the same result. According to a report released by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in the five years between 2001 and 2006 the voluntary demand for renewable energies increased a thousand-fold. The bottom line is as clear as sunlight – the renewable energy...