Clean-energy company sees competition - from China
Co-founder and chief executive Marc Clejan of Greenlogic Energy in his Southampton headquarters. (Oct. 28, 2010) Credit: Randee Daddona
When Marc Clejan started a clean-energy company on Long Island's East End five years ago, he could see some challenges ahead: competition, the usual ups and downs of the economy, and, like any business person, getting customers to pay their bills.
But China?
The Chinese, who have the world's second-largest economy, have begun to heavily subsidize their clean-energy industry, giving those companies a competitive advantage in the view of U.S. officials and business executives. Earlier this month, President Barack Obama said he will investigate Beijing's subsidies, after the United Steelworkers filed a complaint with the U.S. Trade Office, charging China violated its obligations under the World Trade Organization.
"There's no question the U.S. is missing out in a big way on the potential economic opportunities" for renewable energy, said Clejan, chief executive of Southampton-based Greenlogic Energy, one of Long Island's largest installers of solar panels. "We are so far behind other countries, and now China is starting to eat our lunch as well."
Last week, Kevin Law, president of the Melville-based Long Island Association, the region's largest business and civic organization, sent Obama a letter offering support for the effort to investigate China's subsidies to its manufacturers of wind and solar systems, advanced batteries and energy-efficient cars. "China is incentivizing its own companies with cheap land and loans to allow them to grow, drastically cut prices and corner the manufacturing market," Law said in his letter.
Gordian Raacke, executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island, an advocacy group based in East Hampton, said there are now 34 companies here involved in solar panel installation.
"I know more and more solar panels are being manufactured in China" with the Chinese government's help, Raacke said.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., said in a statement this week that the country's policies conform to WTO rules and are also a big contribution to global development.
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