When it comes to wind power, see all the ways Texas blows away other states
The American Wind Energy Association just issued its annual report for 2015. (Yeah, we’re already through the first quarter of 2016. But data doesn’t accumulate itself.)
Texas remains at or near the top in pretty much every category mentioned in the report:
“Texas leads the nation in many wind power ranking categories. It has the most installed wind power, greatest number of wind turbines, highest wind generation, most number of wind powered U.S. homes, largest amount of lease payments, greatest amount of wind investments, and the most wind jobs.”
Some Texas-specific highlights of the AWEA analysis:
Texas led the nation with more than 24,000 wind jobs. Texas generated 10% of its electricity from wind for the first time — far and away the highest percentage for any large state.
New wind power generation represented 46 percent of all new power production created in the past five years. That compares with about 30 percent nationwide.
Texas continues to lead the nation with over 17,700 megawatts of installed capacity. Iowa ranks second in the nation with more than 6,200 MW of installed capacity, passing California.
Texas brought online the most new wind capacity during 2015, with 3,615 MW installed.
In terms of of total energy generation from wind power, Texas generated the most electricity from wind energy — with 44.9 million MWh, or 23.5% of the total wind generation in the U.S.
Texas continues to host the majority of construction activity, with over 5,000 MW reported last year.
Many projects commissioned in Texas were merchant or quasi-merchant, representing 93% of the merchant capacity installed during 2015 for the U.S. overall. The year experienced the most merchant megawatts commissioned since 2009, with 2,420 MW added, driven by the concentration of new projects in the historically merchant-heavy ERCOT market.
