Department of Energy reports detail growth of wind farm installations
The number of wind power installations continues to grow across the country as technology costs and wind energy prices continue to fall, according to several recent reports from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
Wind energy contributed 6.3 percent of the nation’s electricity supply in 2017.
The 2017 Wind Technologies Market Report, prepared by DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, found that the U.S. wind industry installed 7,017 megawatts (MW) of capacity last year, bringing total utility-scale wind capacity to nearly 89 GW. Texas has the most wind power with over 22 gigawatts (GW) of wind capacity, while Oklahoma, Iowa, California, and Kansas have more than 5,000 MW. Thirteen other states have more than 1,000 MW.
Bigger turbines with longer blades are enhancing wind power as capacity has increased by 79 percent in new projects compared to projects installed from 1998 to 2001.
Further, the average installed cost of wind projects was $1,611 per kilowatt (kW) in 2017, down 33 percent from the peak in 2009–2010.
The 2017 Distributed Wind Market Report, prepared by DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, revealed that U.S. wind turbines in distributed applications reached an installed capacity of 1,076 MW.
Distributed wind power is localized wind power, which means the power is generated near where it will be used as opposed to being generated from remote commercial wind farms and sent over transmission lines.
This capacity comes from roughly 81,000 distributed turbines installed across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam. Iowa, Ohio, and California had the most distributed wind capacity installed in 2017.
Finally, the 2017 Offshore Wind Technologies Market Update, prepared by DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, found that the offshore wind project pipeline has reached a total of 25,464 MW of capacity across 13 states. Included in this total is the 30 MW Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Block Island, Rhode Island, commissioned in 2016.
Also, commercial-scale projects are in the works in Massachusetts (800 MW), Rhode Island (400 MW), and Connecticut (200 MW). Further, offshore wind projects are in development for New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. Offshore wind projects have also been proposed off the coasts of Maine, California, and Hawaii.
