[DOE, 23 August 2018]

The Department of Energy has released three wind energy market reports – the 2017 Distributed Wind Market Report, the 2017 Offshore Wind Technologies Market Update, and the 2017 Wind Technologies Market Report- all note that US wind installations are growing and will continue to grow as offshore wind projects are actualized and as technology costs and wind prices decrease. These three reports cover each of the three market sectors inherently tied to the wind industry: “land-based utility scale, distributed, and offshore wind.” Some of the highlights from the reports are included below:

· In 2017, the US wind industry saw 7,017 MW of capacity installed

· 41 states have utility-scale wind projects

· The expansion of the wind industry has led to the creation of 105,000 jobs and $11 billion in investments for new wind plants

· 35% of distributed wind projects in 2017 were installed in homes and 25% were installed at agricultural sites

· “New offshore wind turbines are being developed with 10–12 megawatts of capacity (compared to an average capacity of 2.3 MW for land-based turbines and 5.3 MW for offshore wind turbines installed in 2017).”