By Richard Martin, Contributing Editor

Speaking July 10 to a roomful of renewable energy proponents, RES Americas CEO Craig Mataczynski had some sobering news about the state of industry in this country. “Basically, new construction has been shut down” since the financial crisis began last fall, said Mataczynski, whose company is the U.S. subsidiary of U.K.-based Renewable Energy Systems.

The scene was a reception at the Hotel Boulderado following an education workshop, called RETool, hosted by The Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, at CU’s Leeds School of Business, and the CU-Boulder Entery Initiative. Mataczynski, the guest speaker, told the somewhat aghast crowd that “I don’t know of a single wind-turbine vendor who’s signed a contract in the U.S. this year.”

That’s in stark contrast to the first nine months of 2008, when the renewable-energy business was booming and RES Americas  which relocated to Broomfield from Austin, Tex. last year — could barely keep up with demand. It’s also in contrast with the rosy forecasts that have emerged over the last couple of years for the future of the renewable-energy industry. Boulder-based energy research firm Pike Research said earlier this year that total wind power generation reached 121 gigawatts at the end of 2008, a 29% jump from the year before.

Another report, from market research firm The Freedonia Group, claimed that demand for wind turbine systems will increase 6.8% per year over the next three years. Total wind turbine sales, said the Pike Research report, should reach $43 billion by 2015.

Those now look like overly optimistic predictions. In a sign of the times, oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens said earlier this month that he’s shelving plans to build the world’s largest wind farm, in the Texas Panhandle. “Over the near term, Mr. Pickens instead plans to build three or four smaller wind farms, at a cost of some $2 billion,” Pickens told The New York Times. Pickens now says he’s uncertain whether the enormous version, which was conceived to produce 4000 megawatts of power, will ever be built.

Wind is especially vulnerable to economic downturns because of the huge amount of capital and land required to launch a sizable wind farm. Bank financing often accounts for half of a project’s upfront costs. As of early this year only four major banks were capable of financing large renewable-energy projects in the U.S., down from 18 in 2008, the Times reported. Requiring large tracts of land in windy, often remote locales, wind power is also wholly dependent on transmission lines – an area in which the U.S. is woefully lagging. The federal Energy Information Administration has predicted that U.S. electricity demand will rise 30 percent by 2030, but power lines have only been expanded by six percent since 1996. Mataczynski pointed out that, apart from minor extensions and upgrades, there’s been no new major transmission capacity added in the U.S. since the early 1980s.

The Waxman-Markey energy bill, passed earlier this month by the U.S. House of Representatives, is unfortunately not going to make a difference. Meeting the law’s renewable energy targets, said Mataczynski, would require no new renewable generation construction for the next five years.

 Bright spots remain. Already funded is the Cedar Point Wind Project, in Elbert and Lincoln counties, southeast of Denver. RES Americas is developing the $500 million facility under contract with Xcel energy, which will also build a 40-mile transmission line to connect the site to the electrical grid. The wind farm will generate enough power for 81,000 homes.

Speaking to the Lincoln County Economic Development Commission in April, Mataczynski said, “If we had to start construction tomorrow we would be able to.” The actual expected start date for construction is May of 2010. Hopefully, by then, the wind-power industry will be in business again.