Strong growth in the U.S. wind energy industry accelerated during the first quarter of 2015, with a near-record 13,600MW of generating capacity under construction across 100 projects in 23 states.
Over US$ 23 billion worth of new wind farms is in development now in the USA. The release of AWEA’s U.S. Wind Industry First Quarter 2015 Market Report comes on the heels of AWEA’s 2014 U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report which showed strong construction and manufacturing activity at over 500 facilities in 43 states added nearly 23,000 jobs in 2014. That increases the total amount of full-time equivalent jobs supported by U.S. wind energy to 73,000 as of the start of 2015. The US wind industry completed 131MW of generating capacity in the first quarter (traditionally the slowest quarter of the year for completions). These wind turbines were installed across three projects in different states with most of the new capacity installed in Texas (110MW), followed by Iowa (20MW) and New York (1MW). Wind developers also reported 1,200MW of new construction activity in the first quarter of 2015 for projects that were previously under development, contributing to more than 13,600 MW of total capacity under construction as of March 31.