After four consecutive years with the fastest-growing wind-power market in the world, the DOE announced that, as of 2008, the US can now call itself “the world’s leader in wind power.” According to the DOE, the US has now reached over 25,000 megawatts per year, overtaking previous world wind leader Germany’s 23,930 megawatts. Those 25,000 megawatts translate into a 2% portion of the country’s power supply.
The DOE report (available at http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/46026.pdf) focuses primarily on large-scale wind installations, but there is some discussion of the relationship between wind energy and onsite power. According to the report, while “off-grid” wind installations are small in terms of power generation (up to 300 W to 100 kW), state incentive programs have done a lot to bolster this sector of the wind industry. The report highlights the number of locations ideally suited to this kind of distributed wind energy, including “homes, farms, schools, businesses, and industrial facilities and off-grid sites.” In 2008, the equivalent of 17 MW of distributed wind turbines were sold in the US, amounting to a 78% growth in annual sales from 2007.
Below is a breakdown of distributed wind energy installations for 2008.
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Distributed Wind Power,
Annual Sales in 2008
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Application
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Number of Turbines
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Capacity Additions
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Sales Revenue
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Off-grid
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7,402
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3.8 MW
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$15 million
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On-grid
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2,984
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13.6 MW
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$62 million
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TOTAL
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10,386
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17.4 MW
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$77 million
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Source: AWEA
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In honor of this important milestone, let’s take a look back at some of the wind power stories we’ve covered in Distributed Energy:
Architectural Wind
Greening a School District
Breaking New Ground
Maximizing Efficiency Through Maintenance
Third Time's The Charm at Oregon Wind Farm
Wind on the Edge
Promising Combination
Making History on the Slopes
The Answers (and Questions) Are Blowin in the Wind
Where Self-Sustainability Is in the Wind
Free as the Wind
In Erie, the Answer Is in the Wind