Ports' 'windfalls' threaten to drift away

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The nation’s thirst for renewable energy in the past decade has proven lucrative for regional ports that have thrived from importing and storing wind turbines.

But wind energy manufacturers are looking toward more domestic production, and political pressure is mounting against sending U.S. stimulus money overseas. Those factors make the future uncertain for the sizeable wind energy business those ports now enjoy.

Wind turbine components represented 40 percent of all imports last year at the Port of Longview. But Valerie Harris, the port’s marketing director, said the port expects just five to seven more years of steady business from its wind turbine customers before tapering off.

The port has already spent the better part of a year “looking for the next big thing,” she said.

Nelson Holmberg, a spokesman for the Port of Vancouver USA was less direct, saying it’s too early to project what will happen with import and storage of wind tower components.

But manufacturers and market analysts say that even with increased U.S. manufacturing capacity it’s unlikely that wind turbine imports will cease anytime soon.

Matt Kaplan, a senior wind energy analyst with Cambridge, Mass.-based Emerging Energy Research, said that half of all wind energy towers installed in the United States in 2008 were imported.

Kaplan said some wind energy components are imported because of a lack of a domestic supply. But in other cases, foreign imports are just cheaper.

Looking ahead, overseas suppliers will still undercut domestic prices in some cases, he said.

The prospect of U.S. dollars being invested in overseas manufacturing has riled some members of Congress.

On March 3 four U.S. senators led by Charles Schumer of New York urged the Obama administration to suspend a clean-energy grant program they say sent $1 billion in federal stimulus money to overseas manufacturers.

The senators sought a moratorium on grant payouts until Congress considers a new bill they authored that would benefit clean energy projects using materials manufactured in the United States.

The debate was spurred by news that Cielo Wind Power LP was to receive $450 million in grant money for a West Texas wind farm using turbines made by A-Power Energy Generation Systems Ltd., a Chinese turbine manufacturer.

But even companies that have invested heavily in U.S. manufacturing say they expect to continue relying on imports.

Vestas Americas, the Portland-based North American division of Danish turbine-maker Vestas A/S, has spent some $1 billion on four manufacturing plants in Colorado.

The global economy’s slide, however, has hampered growth, preventing the plants from operating at capacity, said Vestas spokesman Andrew Longeteig. Until they reach capacity — probably in 2011 — the company will keep serving the market with turbines it makes elsewhere.

“To make any projections on imports, we need a more robust and predictable marketplace for wind energy,” Longeteig said. “We just don’t have the market stability.”

Vestas has worked with the Port of Vancouver for 10 years and is in the second year of a three-year contract to store its wind energy components there.

The Vancouver port is also in the final year of a two-year pact to store wind energy parts for German turbine-maker Siemens Energy.

With those contracts in hand, the volume of wind energy components handled by the Port of Vancouver jumped nearly 650 percent, from 362 pieces in 2008 to 2,700 pieces last year. The growth buffered an otherwise difficult year in which overall cargo traffic fell 15 percent.

The Port of Longview said the amount of wind energy tonnage handled last year rose 44 percent — from 63 metric tons to nearly 91 — nearly all of which was import cargo. Harris declined to identify the port’s wind energy partners, other than to say it does business with the industry’s top five manufacturers.

Both ports invested more than $4 million in new mobile harbor cranes to handle the growth.

Both ports have planned for a future that’s less reliant on wind energy components.

The Port of Vancouver’s $137 million rail project will improve freight rail access while giving the port the capacity to handle longer freight trains of up to 120 cars on a single track.

The Port of Longview, meanwhile, in June announced it would become home to a new $150 million grain terminal, the first new export grain terminal built in the United States in the last two decades.

Harris said that even if the wind turbine import market slows in coming years, she believes Longview will be well positioned to shift gears should the market rebound.

“It stands to reason that there could be a shift in the market if domestic manufacturing comes online,” she said. “If there were excess capacity, the U.S. could be an exporter.”