Senator Baucus Announces Chinese Energy Company To Travel to Montana To Explore Opportunities For Locating In The State

Senator Secures Commitment from Goldwind USA to Travel to Montana and Scout Sites for Manufacturing Wind Turbine Components

Montana’s senior U.S. Senator Max Baucus http://baucus.senate.gov/ secured a commitment from Xinjiang Goldwind Science and Technology Company to send its senior U.S. executives to Montana to explore opportunities for locating a wind turbine production facility in the state. Baucus visited Goldwind headquarters outside Beijing Wednesday and met with Goldwind Group CEO Wu Gang and Goldwind USA CEO Tim Rosenzweig.

“Montana is poised and ready to become a leader in wind energy production and that means good-paying jobs for Montana workers. Partnerships with innovative companies like Goldwind will go a long way toward supporting our efforts to put Montana on the map as a wind energy leader. I am proud to bring Goldwind’s top brass to Montana to see for themselves all our great state has to offer,” Baucus said.

Goldwind is one of the largest wind energy manufacturers in the world, with more than 6,000 turbines currently in service, and it is ranked among the top five global wind companies according to its market share in 2009. The company is considering locating a wind manufacturing facility in the United States, and Baucus visited the Goldwind facility in China to promote Montana as that site. USA CEO Rosenzweig committed to visiting Montana with Baucus.

“Senator Baucus understands the importance of a successful partnership between the U.S. and China in elevating the global wind industry and creating jobs here in America,” said Rosenzweig. “As the two largest global producers and consumers of renewable energy, the two countries share a global imperative to provide clean power to the world. I applaud the Senator and his staff for their commitment to creating opportunity in our sector and we are delighted to visit the state to learn more first hand.”

Baucus also took advantage of his visit to Goldwind to explore other ways Montana can benefit from China’s advances in the clean energy sector. The world’s largest energy consumer, China has embarked on a major effort to promote the development of renewable energy resources. In the last two years, China has become the world’s largest producer of wind turbines and solar panels. It was number one in the world in installed renewable energy capacity and number one in renewable energy investments in 2009. China plans to increase the share of its electricity generated by wind, solar and biomass energy from four percent today to eight percent by 2020.

Baucus questioned Goldwind leaders as to which government policies are most effective in supporting wind energy production and how they see the wind-energy sector evolving in the future in an effort to discover more ways to support wind energy production in Montana.

In September, Baucus hosted wind industry leaders at his Economic Development Summit in Butte, Montana for a series of discussions on generation, transmission and manufacturing that focused on building Montana’s wind industry.

Baucus is in China this week to meet with Chinese business and government leaders and explore ways to open new markets for Montana ranchers, farmers, manufacturers and energy leaders to trade their world-class products. More information on Baucus’ meetings earlier this week is available here.

Contact: Kate Downen (406) 224-839-4713/Jennifer Donohue (202) 224-2651