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Wind Power, Not Natural Gas, Is Now the Fastest Growing Energy Source in the US

What fracking boom was that again?
Photo via DIS

Last year was a watershed year for renewable energy, which accounted for nearly half of all new energy capacity in the United States. Now, a pair of new Energy Department reports show that wind power is the true star of American renewables, alone accounting for 43 percent of new energy capacity installed in 2012.

That percentage will only grow, as the report also found that wind is the fastest growing energy sector in the US. Simply put, wind energy production is growing at an astounding rate, and with $25 billion spent on projects last year, there was more wind power added last year than there was natural gas. What fracking boom was that again?

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The first report focuses on the entire market for wind power, and found that 13 gigawatts of wind capacity were added in 2012, bringing the US total to 60 gigawatts at the end of last year. (That number has since grown.) Texas is leading the wind power game, with 12 gigawatts of total capacity at the end of 2012. California is in second, with about half that.  Iowa, South Dakota and Kansas also stand out, as all three get more than a fifth of their statewide power from wind.

The Energy Department is pumped on wind's success.

According to the report, the growth has been spurred by the development of larger turbines with lighter blades, which can be more efficient, especially in areas with less wind. The Department of Energy has funded development of larger designs, and overall the market has shifted larger. The report states that the average capacity of wind turbines has grown 170 percent since 1998.

The cost of wind has dropped as well. It ran about 4 cents per kilowatt hour last year, a decline of 50 percent since 2009.

Of course, even though it's growing quickly, wind power is still a small slice of the US energy pie. According to the Energy Information Administration, wind made up only 3.46 percent of total US power production last year, with coal leading at 37 percent and natural gas at 30 percent. It also was able to make up such a large portion of new energy additions last year because there weren't many new fossil fuel plants built. Still, that wind is growing so quickly is heartening.

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The second report focuses on distributed wind power, which consists of wind power generated directly for local grids, or used for individual farms, buildings, and homes. Distributed power is fascinating, as while it's generally more efficient to produce energy—whether it be wind, coal, or whatever—in a larger, central plant, actually getting that power to people requires infrastructure that's lossy and susceptible to damage.

Moreover, with our outdated grid and large variances in population density, it's hard for utilities to precisely predict energy demands. That means that power plants have to produce more energy at any moment than is needed to prepare for demand spikes, which is generally just a cost of doing business.

On the other hand, building power generation directly at a source could theoretically cut down on transmission losses, reduce outages from grid failures, and—this one might be a stretch—let people more directly connect their demand to their production. (With wind, that's less of a concern anyway.)

While there are people that run diesel generators at home, and the Energy Department hassaid that it wants plug-and-play nuclear reactors that could be distributed, wind is one of the least stressful ways to get into distributed power, behind solar. At the end of last year, the US had 812 megawatts of distributed wind capacity, with the vast majority of small turbines being bought by domestic (e.g. non-utility) customers.

@derektmead