Report examines potential expanding wind capacity
Surveys submitted to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the agency’s Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory indicate wind capacity additions will near record levels in 2019 and 2020.
While wind capacity additions through June 2019 totaled 3.7 gigawatts (GW), the EIA maintains operators expect another 8.5 GW to come online by the end of this year, with an additional 14.3 GW by the end of 2020.
The EIA correlates modifications in annual wind capacity additions to changes in tax incentives, adding the production tax credit (PTC) was initially set to expire for all eligible technologies at the end of 2012 but was later retroactively renewed.
The PTC provides operators with a tax credit per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of renewable electricity generated for the first 10 years a facility is in operation.
Renewed in 2013, the EIA said the PTC provided a maximum tax credit for wind generation of 2.3 cents per kWh for the first 10 years of production, noting under the PTC phase-out, the tax credit decreases by 20 percent per year from 2017 through 2019 and facilities that begin construction after the end of 2020 cannot claim the PTC.
Wind projects must come online by December 2020 to receive the full 2016 PTC value.
