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US Wind 'Nears 90GW' by Staff ReNEWS, January 31, 2018

AWEA says over 7GW of new capacity was added last year

The US added more than 7GW of new wind farms in 2017, bringing total installed capacity in the country to almost 90GW, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

Capacity added last year represented $11bn of new private investment, the AWEA said in its 'US Wind Industry Fourth Quarter 2017 Market Report'.

More than 4.1GW of new capacity was added in the fourth quarter of 2017, with 29 new projects coming online, the report said.

Most of the new capacity was added in Texas, which had 1179MW installed in the quarter, followed by Oklahoma with 851MW, Iowa with 334MW, Illinois 306MW and Missouri 300MW.

Almost 29GW -- 28,668MW -- of new projects are currently under construction, a 34% increase on the same time last year, AWEA said.

AWEA chief executive Tom Kiernan said: "Wind delivered big results for the US economy in 2017. Building new wind farms keeps American factory and construction workers busy, while breathing new life into farming and ranching communities."

Meanwhile, in Canada 10 new wind farms came online in 2017 with a combined capacity of 340MW in Nova Scotia, Ontario and British Columbia, according to the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA).

The new projects represented about C$800m in investment, with total installed wind capacity now standing at more than 12.2GW, CanWEA said.

The association expects over 600MW of new projects to become operational in 2018.

(bluefish notes: By comparison to the 7GW of capacity installed last year, the four Lower Snake River dams have a nameplate capacity of 3GW, though availability of 'fuel' (i.e. river flow) makes for an average annual output of 1GW.")