While it's touted as the fastest growing renewable energy sector world-wide, large scale wind energy projects are a relatively new addition and the smallest portion of the American energy portfolio. According the the Department of Energy's Energy Information Agency, in 1998, wind power represented less that .05% of total renewable energy consumption. Lack of nation wide attention to harvesting the power of the wind can perhaps be best explained by situating the initial wind energy production projects as clean energy and self-sufficiency experiments during the 1980s in response to the twin global oil price hikes. As with most initial phases of public policy energy experiments, a few hitches with respect to production costs and environmental questions of aestetics, noise and bird safety slowed wind power momentum during the early part of the 1990s.

Despite the temporary slow down, production and planning trends are again on the rise, thanks in part to the extension of a federal tax incentive program. In the past three years, wind energy project planning and implementation have approximately doubled total wind energy production capacity nation wide. Initial movement in the upward trend began with Iowa and Minnesota encouraging increased renewable energy production through legislation requiring set percentages of renewable energy implementation.

The movement subsequently headed west and since January 2001, wind power planners have set world records. In the private realm, PacificCorp announced a planned 300 megawatt wind farm along the border of Oregon and Washington, making it, at least in the planning stage, the world's largest wind power project to date. Within the same week, the Department of Energy announced that it selected its Nevada Test Site to be home to the world's second largest wind power project, a 260 megawatt facility.

Prospects for increased production of wind power facilities looks promising, especially taking into consideration potential wind power in the United States. Regionally speaking, only the American South lacks wind significant for energy production. The most productive wind energy regions generally follow mountain or coastal terrains, with the northern portion of the Appalachian chain, the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains and the western slope of the Sierra Nevada's, along with a portion of the southern coast of Alaska as the areas with the highest wind energy creating potential.
 

New wind plants outpace nuclear installations . . .

Worldwide installation of wind energy generating capacity outstripped those of nuclear for the second year in a row in 2000, but wind's future in the United States remains unclear.  Additions to wind energy capacity worldwide totaled 3,800 megawatts in 2000, according to figures from the European Wind Energy Association and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).  The additions last year bring the world's total wind generating capacity to 17,300 mw.  Of the generation capacity added last year, however, only 53 mw (less than 2 percent of the total addition) was installed in the US.  This year, AWEA expects 1,500 mw to be installed domestically.  The wind industry is expected to grow this year by 60% in the US and 34% worldwide.

Wind Energy Links:

• American Wind Energy Association

• American Wind Energy Weekly Newsletter

• DOE Wind Energy Program

• British Wind Energy Association

• European Wind Industry Association

• Canadian Wind Energy Association

• California Energy Commission

• Danish Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association

• National Wind Coordinating Committee

• Renewables for Sustainable Village Power

• Wind Energy Businesses in the World

Research Laboratories

• Sandia National Laboratories

• ECN, Netherlands Research Foundation

• CADDET Renewable Energy

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