A wind farm in Germany. Photo Credit: Philip MayJanuary 30, 2010, (Sawf News) - The US added 9,900 megawatts wind power generation in 2009, a recession year, adding 39% to its existing capacity, according to the New York Times.
It was the largest annual increase on record, an 18 percent jump over the capacity added in 2008.
The impressive stride in a recession year resulted from tax incentives for power generation from renewable energy source within the stimulus package. In addition, 29 US states have now adopted standards that lay down a minimum percentage of the total power generation that must come from renewable sources.
Soon, 2% of the country's power will come from wind turbines.
Texas leads the nation in wind power generation with an installed capacity of 9,410 megawatts, about three times more than the second-largest producer, Iowa. They were followed by California, Washington and Minnesota.
While the recent wind power generation capacity addition has been impressive, the country is trailing Europe which already produces about 5% of its electricity from wind. The European Commission has set a target of 20% from all renewable sources by 2020, a goal that Denmark has already achieved.
China too has set an ambitious target of generating 8% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
Tim Stephure, an analyst at Emerging Energy Research, a consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. estimates that the installed capacity by 2020 will reach about 180,000 megawatts.
News Copyright © Sawf News. May not be reproduced without explicit written permission