The proposed 600-megawatt (MW) project is a joint venture, majority owned by US Renewable Energy Group, a private equity firm, and Cielo Wind Power, an Austin, Texas,-based project developer. A-Power’s parent company, Shenyang Power Group, is a 49% stakeholder. Chinese banks are expected to provide financing.

Schumer, in a letter sent Thursday to US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, said the project should not be given a 30% cash grant made available for renewable energy projects under the $787bn economic stimulus passed in February. That grant programme has given out $1bn to renewable energy projects up front, in lieu of federal tax credits that would have been delivered over several years and required tax-equity investors to monetize. It is seen as a key piece of the financing puzzle in the US currently.

“The purpose of the (stimulus program) was to jump start the economy to create and save jobs — American jobs,” Schumer writes, according to The Associated Press, which was provided a draft copy of the letter. “Yet the Texas wind farm project would create an estimated 2,000-3,000 clean energy manufacturing jobs in China. ... American taxpayer dollars should not be used to finance those Chinese jobs.”

Schumer went on to say that stimulus-funded US wind farms “should be buying American-built turbines and parts”.

While this would be among the first Chinese turbine supply deals for a US project, turbines manufactured overseas are common across the US wind landscape, including in projects funded by the stimulus cash grant programme. For example, the largest recipient in the first round of grant funding, Ibedrola Renewables’ 202MW Peñascal Wind Farm, used Mitsubishi turbines. That project received $114m.

The US is trying to build its wind manufacturing base. As of 2008, about 50% of the components in US-installed wind turbines, by value, were manufactured in the US, up from about 30% in 2005, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Nine companies have US manufacturing facilities with more on the way.