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Texas Leads the Way in Increasing U.S. Wind Power
 The U.S. wind industry brought online more than 8,500 megawatts (MW) of new wind power capacity in 2008, increasing the nation’s cumulative total by 50% to more than 25,300 megawatts and pushing the U.S. ahead of Germany as the country with the largest amount of wind power capacity installed, according to a new report from the American Wind Energy Association.
The latest installations place the U.S. on a trajectory to generate 20% of its electricity from wind energy by 2030, the report said.
“The growth in 2008 channeled an investment of some $17 billion into the economy, positioning wind power as one of the leading sources of new power generation in the country along with natural gas,” according to the association’s Annual Wind Energy Report.
“The new wind projects completed in 2008 account for about 42% of the entire new power-producing capacity added nationally during the year, according to initial estimates, and will avoid nearly 44 million tons of carbon emissions — the equivalent of taking over seven million cars off the road,” the report said.
In 2008, Texas once again installed the largest amount of new capacity — 2,671 MW — “moving it into a league of its own,” the association found.
More new wind capacity was added in Texas last year than in any country except China and the U.S. If Texas were a country, it would rank sixth in the world, the study said, behind Germany, the rest of the U.S., Spain, China and India.
Iowa surged into second place in the U.S., followed in third place by California, which was once the location of practically all the wind power activity in the country.
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