The Great Plains have long been touted as an area of vast wind power potential. And I’m glad to report that the people living there are now beginning to take significant advantage of their renewable resource. North Dakota, the state with the most wind potential in the lower 48, just became the biggest wind producing state by percentage of electricity consumption at ~20.8%.And they are not alone. AWEA reported yesterday that the year 2008 brought huge growth in wind to Iowa (~1.5 GW) so that wind farms now have the capacity to provide ~20.5% of their electricity. Wyoming comes in third at ~15%. Minnesota and New Mexico round out the top five at 8.3% and 7.6%, respectively.
The rest of the top ten are Oregon (7.2%), Colorado (6.9%), Texas (6.7%), Kansas (6.6%), and Montana (6.3%). Interestingly, California – which was long the aggregate wind leader until Texas overtook that position a few years back – is 15th in percentage terms at 3.1% (behind South Dakota (6%), Washington (5.2%), Oklahoma (4.1%) and West Virginia (3.4%)).
Half of our 50 states have less than .5% of electricity coming from wind power, pulling the national average down to ~1.9%. So we have to more than triple current capacity to compete percentage-wise with Spain, Germany, and Denmark, nations that get at least 6% of their electricity from wind turbines. If we are aggressive, this could be done by 2016, potentially the end of Obama’s second term.
Growth in 2009 is slated to be as little as 4.4 GW (17.5%) and concentrated in Texas and a handful of states such as New York, Indiana, Oregon, Illinois, and Kansas. Innovative incentives can help the wind industry buck the recession and credit crisis to foster more green jobs and more clean, low-cost electricity.
I’ll keep you updated as the year progresses, and we’ll see if we can get more states climbing toward the 20% mark achieved by North Dakota and Iowa.
Tags: 2008, 2009, Electricity, energy, renewables, wind power