The United States installed more wind power than any other source in 2020.

With a total of 16.8 GW, wind power installation in the United States surpassed solar and natural gas during 2020

The United States Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy has announced, through the 2021 onshore wind market report, that last year wind power prevailed over all other energy generation sources as the first choice for installation in the United States, surpassing solar energy, which has had a record year in the North American country and traditional natural gas, which fell to its lowest point in the last five years. Such is the strength of wind power installation in the US that in the southwest of the country, new wind turbines accounted for almost 80% of new power additions.

The report only highlights the ever-increasing cost-efficiency and profitability of wind power, which has undergone a revolution in recent years with the development of larger, more efficient, and cheaper turbines; increasing the average rotor size by 159% since the late 1990s and the average turbine height by 59% over the same time period. These types of innovations have reduced the production cost per kilowatt to $800, compared to $1,800 in 2008. Thus, the United States was the second country, after China, that installed the most wind turbines during 2020, reaching a total of 67,000 turbines located in its territory.

With this, the investment made by the United States during 2020, which has reached $24.6 billion and has added 16,836 MW of wind generation capacity, has left different significant data:

• 42% of the new electricity generation capacity installed in the United States during 2020 came from wind energy, which already supports 116,800 jobs in the United States.
• Wind energy has generated more than 10% of electricity generation in 16 states. Notable are Iowa, where 57% of its generation came from wind power; or Kansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and North Dakota, where it accounted for more than 30% of electricity generation.
• The state that installed the most capacity in 2020, of the 25 that invested in wind power, was Texas, reaching 4,137 MW. Other leading states in wind installation were Oklahoma, Wyoming, Illinois, and Missouri; all of them installing more than 1 GW.

Last year became the best in history for US wind power, reaching 122 GW in the North American country.

The report «American Clean Power Market Report 2020«, responsible for bringing together this vitally important information to understand the state of renewable energy in the US, points to a historic rebound in the sector in the last four months of 2020, when more wind energy was installed on North American soil than in any other year in the total historical series, except 2021. So much so that up to 54 new wind energy projects took place in 20 different states. Of all of them, Texas stands out, where 2,197 MW of wind power were installed; Wyoming, with 895 MW; Oklahoma, which added another 866 MW; Iowa, adding 861 MW to its electrical grid; and Missouri, which rounds out the top 5 with 786 MW.

The wind energy installed in the United States in 2020 would be capable of supplying the consumption generated by 5 million homes. Something that is even more significant if we take into account that the total of 122 GW of wind generation capacity installed in the land of rock & roll would provide enough electricity for the consumption of 38 million homes. Responsible for all these figures are the approximately 67,000 wind turbines operating in this country across 41 states.