The Capital Region's fledging renewable energy economy appeared to take a major hit back in January when General Electric Co. significantly dialed down production at its $170 million battery factory.

GE, which has kept a skeleton crew of about 50 workers at the four-year-old plant, said the move was just a matter of timing and that it hadn't anticipated how slowly the market for batteries designed for the electric grid would take to develop.

Still, GE did move 400 people out of the battery business, although it insisted all of them would be offered new jobs within the company. 

GE has not indicated when or if it will be able to ramp up the factory back to full production.