A poor economy and a dried-up credit market have not slowed the pace of construction of wind farms in 2009. According to figures released today by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the U.S. wind industry grew by 39 percent in 2009, adding 9,922 megawatts of new capacity last year, bringing total U.S. wind-powered generation to over 35,000 megawatts.
Before the stimulus money, the wind industry predicted that wind installation in 2009 would actually fall by as much as 50 percent. Denise Bode, CEO of the AWEA, says the stimulus money changed that and helped turn around an expected steep decline into a nearly 40 percent growth. She tells the New York Times’s DealBook:
The U.S. wind industry shattered all installation records in 2009, and this was directly attributable to the lifeline that was provided by the stimulus package.
Wind-rich Texas added 2,292 megawatts of wind generation last year, followed by Indiana, which added 905 megawatts of new capacity. A lot of those new megawatts, came from the 400-megawatt Fowler Ridge wind farm, in Indiana’s Benton County, which came online this year. Iowa, in third place, added 879 megawatts of new capacity.
Data Source: American Wind Energy Association