Wind power recently surpassed hydroelectric power as the number one form of renewable energy in the United States, the American Wind Energy Association announced Thursday in a news release.
The country now has more than 82,000 megawatts of wind-generated capacity, or enough to power 24 million homes annually, the association reported.
Citing Department of Energy data, the association states that hydroelectric power has 80,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the United States.
In total, wind power provides about 5 percent of the U.S. electricity supply and the American Wind Energy Association expects that amount to double by 2020.
The recent addition of a utility-scale wind farm in North Carolina brings the total number of turbines in the country to 52,000 across 41 states, Guam and Puerto Rico, AWEA states.
Texas produces the most wind energy in total of any other state while Iowa has the highest percentage of its electricity demand supplied by wind. Ohio lags behind neighbors in the Midwest. Wind development in the state has suffered from recent legislative changes by the Ohio General Assembly that made renewable energy less economical.
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Especially harmful to the wind industry has been a change in the setback rules that limit how close turbines can be to property that is unoccupied.
AWEA announced the latest wind energy numbers at a General Motors assembly plant in Arlington, Texas, that gets 50 percent of its electricity from wind.
A number of companies are contracting directly with wind-energy providers for their electricity needs. One example in Ohio is Amazon Web Services, which is getting electricity from wind farms in the state to power the company’s data-processing centers.
Ohio’s largest wind farm, Blue Creek, is in Van Wert and Paulding counties. The bulk of its power is sold to FirstEnergy, Ohio State University and American Municipal Power.
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The U.S. Department of Energy has determined that more than 100,000 U.S. jobs are related to the manufacturing, construction and maintenance of wind turbines, according to AWEA.
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