HOUSTON—The American wind energy industry is as strong as it has ever been and all indications suggest the sector will only continue to strengthen as consumers demand cleaner and cost-effective energy, according to a report by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

In its “U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report for 2018”, released on April 9, AWEA said wind energy grew in capacity by 8% last year and is now able to provide power to 30 American homes. The report also showed that wind power in the U.S. supports a 114,000 American jobs, over 500 domestic factories and adds over $1 billion a year in revenue for states and communities that have wind farms.

“(Last year) was a record year for wind energy in the United States,” said AWEA CEO Tom Kiernan, who discussed the report at the Greater Houston Partnership in Downtown Houston. “We had more jobs in wind than ever before, we have more under construction in wind than ever before, we have more corporate and industrial purchases in wind than ever before, we have lower cost than ever before, we have more money going to rural America than ever before.”

While much of America is benefiting from wind energy, it is the rural and farm communities—where 99% of the nation’s wind generating capacity can be found—that are seeing most of the revenue gains, the report said.  The AWEA report found that the wind industry is accounting for $761 million in state and local taxes, which helps improve schools, fix roads and fund emergency services. 

In addition, $289 million is being paid each year in wind farm land lease payments.

“It’s important to put this into context for farmers and ranchers,” Kiernan said. “Many of them they are able to keep that farm or ranch in the family because of those land-lease payments. Many farmer and ranchers refer to it as a drought-resistant cash crop.

“Those turbines use just a very small portion of their ranch or farm. For the taxes that we pay that’s a dramatic funding infusion for school districts, for counties to fix roads or buy emergency service vehicles.”
Job creation in the wind industry has also been a major bonus for the American economy. In 2018, 8,500 more jobs came on board in wind energy and for the third year in a row wind turbine technician has been the second fastest growing profession in this country, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics. Solar installer is the fastest growing profession.

Kiernan said many of the wind energy jobs are going to veterans, who come with the skills to operate rugged machinery under tough conditions to keep energy reliably flowing to homes and businesses. The wind energy industry is hiring veterans at a 67% faster rate than the average industry throughout the U.S.

“That’s because they are so well trained and well suited for the exciting and at moments challenging work in the wind energy,” Kiernan said. 

There are 24,000 manufacturing jobs found at over 500 U.S. factories supplying the wind energy. But while wind energy and utility companies are forever tied, more non-utility companies, including Fortune 500 brands, are turning to wind power.

In 2018, companies such as AT&T, Walmart and Facebook purchased a record amount of wind energy directly from wind farms. They signed 4.2 GW of wind energy, which was a 66% increase over the previous record in 2015 of purchases by corporate industrial.

Kiernan said these companies are doing so because Americans are demanding. And these companies purchased roughly 11.3 GW of wind energy.

“Yes it’s clean, yes Americans want it and it’s also exceedingly affordable,” Kiernan said.
Still, utility companies remain a major purchaser of wind energy primarily because it’s cheaper. The report says wind energy is the cheapest source of new electricity on an unsubsidized basis, representing about a two-thirds drop from 2009. The anticipation is the costs will come down as the wind industry grows.

“So utilities are buying them not only because they are clean, but also because we are a reliable partner on the grid,” Kiernan said. 

Currently, there are six states that rely on over 20% of their electricity being produced by wind energy. Those states are Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota and Maine.

In 2018, the report said wind turbines generated 6.5% of all the electricity delivered to U.S. customers.

There is currently 35,000 GW of wind energy projects either under construction or in the advance stages of development, which is a new high in the U.S.

And Texas continues to lead the way as the No.1 producer of wind energy in the country with just under 25 GW of wind energy installed. That is one-fourth of the wind energy the U.S. produces and Texas would rank fifth in the world in wind power capacity if it were a country.

Texas, which had nearly 7,000 MW of additional wind projects either under construction or in the advance stages of implementation in 2018, currently has 25,000 jobs in the industry while distributing $307 million last year to communities and rural land owners throughout the state.

“The Texas success story is also very much an American success story,” Kiernan said.
But to keep the growth going in this country, Kiernan said more states must create policies that encourage low costs and provide stable support for wind. He said at the federal level, the industry is looking for similar policies but is more focused on improved transmission of wind energy.

“In particular calling on Congress to do a better job on permitting, to pick up the pace, streamline the permitting process for these billion dollar systems and to call on FERC to do the inter-regional planning,” Kiernan said. “Do the transmission lines and now we are going to start an interstate highway system.”