Talk:Wind power in the United States/Archive 1

Cost comparisons
It would be nice to see the cost of wind generated electricity vs. coal vs. gas vs. nuclear vs. solar, operations and startup, with and without subsidies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edibobb (talk • contribs) 22:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * That would be nice indeed. And with and without external costs. Another factor to consider is the future costs of fossil fuels. Uranium, coal, and natural gas have all increased in price along with petroleum, although petroleum is more expensive than the other nonrenewables. The future fuel cost of wind is zero, so a wind farm is mostly capital cost along with some operating and maintenance costs. The possibility that future prices for nonrenewable fuels could skyrocket without warning gives wind additional value as a hedge. --Teratornis (talk) 06:01, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The cost of wind power is also increasing, even though the wind is free, mostly because the cost of the turbines is increasing. (pdf) For instance, Maine's 41 MW·yr/yr Kibby Wind Power Project used to have a list price of $270 million; it's now up to $320 million.
 * —WWoods (talk) 18:09, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The cost of wind energy is driven primarily by three key drivers which make an apples to apples across the board comparison to coal or gas difficult, even after attempting to correct for externalities and/or subsidies: 1.) Wind resource (typically measured by mean wind speeds at the turbine hub height, which is usually around 80 meters) varies greatly by geography.   In Wyoming, mean wind speeds at 80 meters range from 9m/s to 14m/s at potential wind sites, with corresponding capacity factors of 42% to 47%.  In Europe, average on-shore capacity factors for installed wind farms are around 25%, and for all other things being equal, the resulting cost of energy in $ per MWh would be almost double that of the Wyoming case. 2.)  The run up in commodity prices (namely steel and copper) over the past 5 years and the recent crash in prices, coupled with a global shortage in wind turbine manufacturing capacity has made the installed cost of wind projects highly volatile. In 2003 utility scale projects (50 MW and above) were installed at a cost of $1100 per kW on shore in the US; in 2008 the cost is nearer to $2500 per kW. In 2003 in Colorado, wind energy contracts were struck at $30 per MWh; in 2008 contracts were running around $60 to $70 per MWh. 3.) Wind resource tends to be stronger at locations remote from population centers, and the availability (or lack thereof) of transmission capacity to carry the energy from the windy sites to the load centers can add anywhere from $5 to $40 per MWh to the delivered cost of energy.

Other factors, such as the nature of the existing generation portfolio in the area and therefor the cost of integrating wind energy into the electrical system, can also vary from location to location. The Bonneville Power Authority, which has lots of hydro resources available for "firming" wind, recently pegged the cost of integrating wind in the mid $3 per MWh range; Xcel Energy released a report putting the cost of integrating enough wind to supply 20% of their energy needs in Colorado between $5 and $6 per MWh.

There are therefor examples of wind energy costing much less than the traditional fossil alternatives (a 2007 report in Colorado calculated Xcel's ratepayers collectively saved hundreds of millions of dollars due to the displace of natural gas and coal fired power plants by new wind installations) while in others even significant premiums for green power (in Massachusetts it is $50 per MWh) have not provided enough incentive to get wind projects developed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.162.136.160 (talk) 07:05, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

kilowatt-hours data needed
It is great to see the capacity data (MW). But this is just theoretical! We also need real yearly kilowatt-hours (kWh) data state by state for wind, and for total electricity consumption by state. Then we can figure out percent electricity from wind by state. -69.87.204.37 (talk) 15:31, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Data for year 2008 for the amount of wind generated electricity by state has been added. This data came from the U.S. EIA. They also have a table containing the total amount of electricity generated by state for year 2008. From this it is possible to calculate the % of wind generated electricity by state for 2008. But that would probably constitute 'original research' if I were to update the article. Corresponding 2009 data may be available around April 2010.--71.38.172.8 (talk) 01:14, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

The figures for Indiana especially seem goofy (inconsistent). How could they generate more than is potentially supposed to be available? Also the Yearly Production Tera Watt column needs explanation. Why are there blank cells? talk 12:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.58.152.238 (talk)


 * Recent NREL numbers state that at 70 m Indiana has over 40,000 MW potential, which could double at 100 m, the height of newer turbines. The rest of the states need to be updated as well. Blank cells probably indicate no data is available. 199.125.109.73 (talk) 23:33, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The wind availability numbers are estimates. To get real data requires putting up anemometers on a site at representative heights and leaving them up for at least a year. Wind power increases with approximately the seventh root of height above ground. Newer wind turbines keep getting taller, with hub heights around 100 m, which increases the areas where wind turbines can be economical. And as fossil fuel prices keep increasing, that also has the effect of expanding the areas where wind turbines can be economical. I also think some turbines can outperform their nameplate capacities at higher wind speeds. --Teratornis (talk) 06:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The numbers get astronomical if they follow the trend set by Indiana, although what really happened is that previously only a tiny percentage of land area was included (for Indiana). Is there a newer list than the one done in 1991? Did NREL do every state at 70m? It would probably be more meaningful to just add a new column, to show the 70m data, or one for 100m would be even better. 199.125.109.56 (talk) 15:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Googleing for: finds a bunch of links, including a Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States, but that looks rather old. EERE has some apparently newer information at: Wind Powering America, with pages for some states such as Indiana Wind Activities. Here is a 50m wind map for Indiana ("windiana"). I don't see a 100m wind map, but presumably the wind power classes could be higher at 100m. The 50m wind map for Ohio page links to a Ohio Wind Resource Explorer with links to wind maps for various heights, from AWS Truewind. Notice the huge wind resource over Lake Erie, the shallowest and least icy of the Great Lakes, and therefore a potentially good place to build offshore wind turbines. Comparing the 50m and 100m maps for Ohio shows some areas that move up two wind power classes at the greater height. For example, Logan County, Ohio has a sizable extent of wind power class 5 at 100m, and that's conveniently close to power consumers in Cincinnati, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio, with transmission lines already crossing the county. The older wind maps I've seen for Ohio showed little potential that far south. --Teratornis (talk) 22:12, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Links to the 70m and 100m wind maps for Indiana are in the reference for Indiana 70m wind capacity. How are you defining class 5 at 100m? I only see a reference for 50m wind classes. Are you using those power densities for all higher turbines? Is that standard? I see that is what the Ohio interactive map is doing, plus they have split class 1 into 1- <100 and 1+ <200 W/m2. So it seems odd to have wind class refer to relative wind strength at 10 - 50 m but refer to absolute wind strength above that. 199.125.109.33 (talk) 02:26, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Here are 50m and 100m wind power maps for Ohio from AWS TrueWind that use the same wind power class scheme:
 * 50m wind power map for Ohio
 * 100m wind power map for Ohio
 * Comparing them side by side shows how the wind power class increases by one or two in many areas from 50m to 100m. This is part of what drives the trend toward ever-larger wind turbines. The other driver is that swept rotor area increases with the square of blade length, but cost goes up with a slightly lower power. The limiting factor for wind turbine size is getting the enormous wind turbine components to the site. Even on Interstate highways and railroads there are limits to the maximum length of a turbine blade that can negotiate the bends. In any case, wind power potentials have tended to increase over the years as people have collected more wind speed data from various sites, and wind turbines have gotten taller. --Teratornis (talk) 21:06, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

USA now number one?
According to this reference: Google finds additional links which confirm this: It's time to work this into the article. --Teratornis (talk) 06:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "U.S. wind production jumped 45 percent last year, and, in July (2008), the country overtook Germany as the world's top wind producer."
 * "U.S. wind production jumped 45 percent last year, and, in July (2008), the country overtook Germany as the world's top wind producer."
 * On further reading, I see that Germany retains the lead in installed nameplate capacity, but the U.S. is producing slightly more wind energy now because U.S. wind farms have a slightly higher capacity factor than German wind farms due to stronger winds. I will add that to the article, with sources. --Teratornis (talk) 20:59, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Rhode Island Off Shore Wind Farm
Rhode Island just approved America's first off shore wind farm. This needs at least a blurb on this page or a separate section. Risico001 (talk) 22:51, 28 September 2008 (UTC) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a_iLNJiO0VBU&refer=us
 * See Wind power in Maine for a recently-started article. Every state with commercial wind power in operation or under construction can probably pass the notability guideline with ease, since wind power is so newsworthy in the U.S. now. Every state with commercial wind power can (and should) have its own "Wind power in ..." article. See WP:CITE, WP:CITET, and WP:FOOT to learn how to make citations. See WP:LAYOUT for article layout guidelines. Let me know if you need help with a Wind power in Rhode Island article. Here are some links for finding more references:
 * Search the Web with Google:
 * Search scholarly references with Google scholar cite:
 * wind power rhode island
 * wind power rhode island offshore
 * Also see the Green Maven site which has a Google custom search on Web sites specializing in "green" topics. --Teratornis (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * New Jersey joins Delaware and Rhode Island in permitting offshore wind development:
 * --Teratornis (talk) 07:25, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * New Jersey joins Delaware and Rhode Island in permitting offshore wind development:
 * --Teratornis (talk) 07:25, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * --Teratornis (talk) 07:25, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

50m Wind Power Potential
This section should be deleted because it doesn't take into account many factors. For all states the estimated wind power is much too low. 69.58.115.49 (talk) 14:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Disagree, and by section, I assume you mean column. See Indiana, which has only a tiny corner of the state included as 50m class 3 or above. Just fill in the rest of the states as needed, and replace the 70m data with 80m or 100m data as that becomes available. For historical reasons I would like to see the 50m column kept permanently. In many or even most states the increase will not be as dramatic as in Indiana, and will be a 2-1 or 3-1 increase perhaps, and certainly not a 1000-1 increase. The 50m data did in fact include many factors, but the one factor that it did not include was an increase in turbine height, which as you can see has a huge impact in Indiana, as it opens up large areas of the state to commercial viability. 199.125.109.73 (talk) 05:09, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * How can you agree that Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana all have 0 wind at 50m? That is ridiculous. 69.58.115.49 (talk) 14:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I would guess the figure means those states had no areas the estimate identified as class 3 wind resource or higher at 50m over land. Or maybe class 4 or higher. (Florida must have some offshore wind resources.) In the early days of wind power development, only very windy sites were suitable for wind farms, because turbines were expensive and not very tall. Today's wind turbines are much taller, allowing them to tap stronger winds at a given site. This has expanded the area suitable for wind power development. Unfortunately, we're still using old wind resource estimates from government agencies, because most of the new wind power maps appear to be under copyright by commercial vendors. In any case, it doesn't matter what you think is "ridiculous," what matters is what you can reliably source. Cleaning up the wind resource estimates table will be difficult because the data is scattered among many conflicting sources. We won't really know the actual wind resources until people build wind farms everywhere they can. --Teratornis (talk) 21:16, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * That is correct. 0 at 50 m does not mean that if you put up a wind turbine at 50 m you get 0 kWh/year. It means there are 0 locations you can get an average wind velocity at 50 m that is class 3 or better for the year. I think they also give the expected output per year, but only base it on locations that are class 3 or better. They also used "moderate exclusions", which means they excluded a certain percentage of each type of land area from having wind turbines. But you can see from Indiana the dramatic change you get when you go up just 20 m, and at 100 m they expect to double that 40,000 MWp capacity estimate for the state. The Feds have been spending Trillions of dollars over the last 8 years, but hardly a dime on anything worthwhile, like updating geodesic maps. Mine all say "Provisional edition 1987", and I believe the USGS has no plans to update them. Ever. What morons. 199.125.109.56 (talk) 20:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Also note that the wind resource maps are for the most part estimates based on historical weather data, and assumptions about local topography, forest cover, etc. Before anybody sinks millions of dollars into building a wind farm at a prospective location, they first put up monitoring masts with anemometers to do a Wind resource assessment over a period of at least one year. The only function of the wind resource map is tell people where they should put up masts to get actual data. (The wind farm developer may have little incentive to share this data, so it doesn't necessary work its way back into the wind resource maps we can download for free off government Web sites. There may be wind farms happily churning away in "class 3" areas actually getting more, or less, wind. For example, Nolan County, Texas is well south and east of the estimated windiest portion of the Texas panhandle, but Nolan County has been the initial epicenter of the Texas wind boom, perhaps because it is closer to existing transmission lines.) The actual wind resource available at a given location may vary widely over relatively short distances, so the placement of turbines on a wind farm can be important. A horizontal shift of 100m can sometimes make a lot of difference. As to the problem of the USGS updating its maps, I suspect the users of data have the greatest incentive to improve it, so the future of geodesy may be a Commons-based peer production scheme like OpenStreetMap. (Here Comes Everybody.) We just need technology to make it really simple for people to collect and share data themselves. The political process is far less efficient at determining what you want than you are by making your own mouse clicks. --Teratornis (talk) 22:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana currently have no existing or under-construction commercial wind power facilities. The states with the best wind resources will build wind projects first, starting with locations closest to existing grids and building out from there. Certainly the wind also blows in these southern states, but as they are in the Horse latitudes they may be subject to long periods of calm. For a wind farm to be viable, the consistency of its wind resource is more important than the strength of the wind. It's too bad the southern states cannot convert the power of hurricanes into useful form, as this power is immense. --Teratornis (talk) 22:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Michigan (and other Great Lakes states)
Clearly, the potential capacity for many states is much too low. This doesn't take into account offshore potential. For example, Michigan has a potential that easily exceeds North Dakota's (see http://www.landpolicy.msu.edu/modules.php?name=Documents&op=viewlive&sp_id=812). It becomes pretty apparent by just looking at the 50 meter wind resource map of the United States (see http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/pdfs/wind_maps/us_windmap.pdf). Most of Michigan's territorial waters are classified as "outstanding". Furthermore, Michigan controls more than 40% of the surface are of the Great Lakes. This area is within the jurisdiction of Michigan and is owned and operated by the state. This isn't entirely true of ocean water offshore of states, and certainly isn't true of most onshore sites. Phizzy 19:39, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Other states that border the Great Lakes, and the seaboard states, also have large offshore wind resources. However, the U.S. wind industry has been slow to develop offshore wind, due to the large on-shore wind resource and the much lower cost of on-shore construction. Few developers will consider the added costs and risks of offshore wind as long as on-shore sites remain plentiful. Europe is much farther ahead with offshore wind power because the land in Europe is more crowded and onshore wind farms are more prone to NIMBYism there. The other problem with the wind power potential table (discussed above) is that the 50 meter height understates the wind resource available to newer wind turbines that have hub heights of 70-100 meters. --Teratornis (talk) 02:45, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Yet another study of wind resource potential
The paper looks interesting. --Teratornis (talk) 21:56, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

20% By 2030
A report came out today (20-Jan-10) on this. The idea of having 20% of U.S. electricity generated by windpower by 2030. Information from this report (or from the 40 pg. summary, rather) should be integrated into the article. Some tidbits I took from the report:


 * The toughest challenges to get there are )Getting a physical transmission grid infrastructure in place that will be needed to transmit power from where its generated to where its used. And )Determining where the sources of wind power should be located, i.e. what % should come from Great Plains and what % should be from offshore East Coast.


 * The technology to control the grid with this high % of windpower already exists, that is not a problem. Controlling the grid due to changes in demand is a much more difficult problem than controlling the grid due to changes in supply from windpower.


 * 20% Wind energy would reduce Carbon Emissions by about 4.5% (from today's level I think).


 * New Extremely High Voltage (750 KV ac or 800 KV dc) Transmission lines will be needed and will be costly.


 * U.S. needs to develop a comprehensive nationwide plan for a transmission grid, instead of the piecemeal, local/regional approach that has been historicaly been taken.


 * Diversifying the locations of wind generation reduces the reserve generation capacity requirements.


 * Considering costs of transmission grid, & other costs, generation from carbon based fuels still cheaper for awhile. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.214.223.133 (talk) 03:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you have a link to the report? A national low-loss grid will be essential for linking up wind, solar, hydro, and other generators to provide load balancing and overcome the local variability/intermittency of wind and sun. Also, 20% by 2030 is a fairly conservative target, given that wind power is already at about 2% of total annual US electricity generation and has been doubling in about two years. If the US wind power industry can maintain that growth, it will produce 20% of US electricity in about ten years. It is frightening that this will only cut the US carbon footprint by 4.5% (that figure sounds believable, since electricity generation consumes about a fourth of US fossil fuel consumption, the remainder going to transport, building heat, and process heating in industry). Much deeper cuts are needed soon to avoid dangerous climate change according to the vast majority of climate scientists. Of course the other economic sectors have potential to reduce emissions also. --Teratornis (talk) 09:50, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Here's a link to a page from which the summary (pdf) can be downloaded. http://www.nrel.gov/wind/systemsintegration/ewits.html BTW, I incorrectly interpreted the report for the last statement above. Other sources state that the report meant to say, that considering the cost of carbon emmissions, wind generation is cheaper than coal.--71.214.238.198 (talk) 03:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

NREL updated its wind resource estimates
National Renewable Energy Laboratory has new wind resource maps and estimates, for the whole US at 80m and for more individual states that did not have separate wind resource maps before. See: See Commons:User:Teratornis/Gallery for some older maps I uploaded from NREL last year. Unfortunately, the new maps are available in PDF which someone might be able to convert to SVG. There are also some very large PNG files that look like blowups from the PDFs. Here are some instructions to convert PDF to SVG: I don't have all the software mentioned in those instructions. I might try to install it if nobody else uploads the new wind resource map to Commons first. --Teratornis (talk) 09:34, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.fastcompany.com/1558412/the-top-10-states-for-wind-power - some press coverage, also showing wind power potential for the top ten states; note that Texas alone could produce more electricity from wind than the current annual consumption of the whole US according to these new estimates
 * http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_maps.asp
 * http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/pdfs/wind_maps/us_windmap_80meters.pdf - PDF map of the lower 48 states
 * http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_resource_maps.asp?stateab=tx (Texas was missing before, for example)
 * Graphics village pump/April 2009

Needs a history section
Windpower has been used in the US for over a century; this article would benefit in depth and insight from an exploration of how windpower spread across the nation - there were dozens (hundreds?) of US windmill manufacturers - before the advent of Rural electrification. Twang (talk) 23:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It does need a history section, but those windmills weren't electricity producers - they almost always pumped water. "Wind power" in this article means "electricity produced by wind" which was virtually non-existent until the 1970s - DavidWBrooks (talk) 01:10, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You're right, they almost always pumped water. But there was at least one company that had a wind powered generator, probably used primarily to charge batteries or provide lighting. 'Wind charger' or 'Wincharger' I think was the name of the product or company. --Aflafla1 (talk) 05:28, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Public opinion
DavidWBrooks, I agree polls may be misleading. Here I trust on the wiki readers judgements of the relevance. 89% of American voters (84% of Republicans, 88% of Independents and 93% of Democrats) believe increasing the amount of energy the nation gets from wind is a good idea in April 22nd, 2010. I recommend to revert your change: as AWEA is in my opinion an reliable source. Watti Renew (talk) 12:35, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * If the industrial lobby for big pharma did a survey saying 89 percent of Americans want more drugs, would you include that in a wikipedia article? If the newspaper association released a survey saying people trust newspapers more than blogs, would you want to include that? If the coal industry released a survey saying people prefer coal power to wind power, would you include that in this article? No, I didn't think so - and AWEA is the same sort of thing, a group whose income depends on more wind energy being built (even though I think they're good guys, they're still a tainted source for a poll). (By "you" incidentally, I don't mean anybody personally - I really mean "us/we", as in anybody who edits wikipedia.) - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:06, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * DavidWBrooks, You give good points, thank you. I feel we have the same view. Isn’t this what Wikipedia is all about? The readers are expected always to evaluate the reliability of information. I see no conflict here. Neutral point of view (NPOV) Wiki does not pretend that this is an entirely objective process – the reliability of a source is a matter of personal judgement. NPOV All significant views will be published with a reliable source. As this information is of interest for many readers, it is significant. Therefore, in my opinion it should be included in the article. Watti Renew (talk) 16:45, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * My apologies, but I haven't been clear enough that the fact it's a poll increases my feeling that it shouldn't be part of the article. If this was data about usage or spending or something hard like that, it would make it more valuable regardless of the source. But a poll asking "do you like so-and-so" is pretty worthless regardless of who does it; they're a dime a dozen, and not worth the space in an article, IMHO.
 * Anybody else out there have an opinion on this?- DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:04, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I pretty much agree with DavidBrooks. I was aware of the poll before it was placed in the article. Adding the poll would only have the effect of making the article appear more pro-wind biased. Polls that aren't conducted by professional polling organizations tend to be strongly biased. --71.214.221.153 (talk) 00:52, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

About the section on Percentage of electricity generated from wind
The section on Percentage of electricity generated from wind was recently deleted. I don't really know what was wrong with it as it was, so I went ahead and put it back up. They can't copyright the facts on the site, so as long as the text isn't copy/pasted from AWEA's site or report, I don't see how they can require it look some special way here. In any event I think it is valuable information, and should not just be deleted from the article, but rather modified to comply with copyright rules, if it doesn't already.TheFreeloader (talk) 00:25, 26 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I've noticed that the percentage numbers, from New Mexico on down are exactly the same in both columns. These are indeed the values the AWEA sources have. But the fact they are the same makes the 2009 numbers extemely dubious. It's likely that somewhere the data got screwed up causing 2008 data got used for 2009. The 2008 percentages in the earlier section are based EIA data, which had been corrected since the time the AWEA used the data to generate their report. (In other words, the percentage values in the earlier section are more accurate.) They are not too much different from the 2008 column below. That makes me believe that it is the 2009 data that is in error. I've left the table as is because 1) it does not violate Wikipedia standards (its citeable), and 2) I don't have any better data. --71.214.221.153 (talk) 18:54, 10 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The claims are indeed dubious, as noted by 71.214.221.153. Perhaps we should pull them entirely until such time as verifiable updated info for 2009 is available.  N2e (talk) 19:18, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Wind power by state
The existing power (end 2009) figures do not match the figures currently available in the linked reference (and dated 12/31/2009). Possibly the whole column and probably the "under construction" one as well need updated (or, should we say, synchronized with the reference). Rmhermen (talk) 21:22, 17 June 2010 (UTC)


 * They don't match because the data on the AWEA map was updated to reflect capacity added in the first quarter 2010, but they forgot to update the date on the map. The 'under construction' column should be deleted, as the data is out of date or otherwise unreliable. I know of three projects under construction that the AWEA doesn't list. --71.214.233.109 (talk) 02:36, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

"Aesthetics, the environment and quality of life": Neutrality Questioned.
I don't pretend to agree with these people: National Wind Watch but the mere fact that such sites and intensity of opinions exist (note the links to published opinions from around the world), make it seem advisable that the "Aesthetics, the environment and quality of life" section should be made more neutral, and avoid its current implication that there is just one possible desirable outcome for decisions on whether or not to install wind power facilities, at a specific site or anywhere. I'm just remarking on this, I'm not pretending to have the skills to accomplish the needed change. Kent Paul Dolan, xanthian@well.com --Xanthian (talk) 00:29, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Noted. The section should keep to topics that are of particular significance in the U.S. as there is a separate article for this in general. The bat problem should be noted, as well as the predatory bird problem in Ca. One wind farm in West VA. has particular bat problems. A potential problem exists with migratory birds and wind farms sited in flyways.  Wind farms can interfere with radar - a wind farm in oregon was delayed until the U.S.A.F. determined that it could correct for problems by using multiple radars. Aesthetic issues for Cape Wind & sites on mountain/ridge tops.  Blinking light annoyance at night - alleviated by not requiring a light on every tower, and making lights less visible from ground. Blinking in unison indicates wind farm.  Will work on this.--Aflafla1 (talk) 06:25, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Statement about Iowa 2010 percentage
(Statement was about Iowa having estimated 20% of electricity come from wind in 2010.)

First, yes I recognize that this statement did come from the AWEA reference. However, their statement said that it was an estimate. And I believe this estimate was made early in 2010 before any 2010 data was available. This estimate turned out to be inaccurate. Data from the Energy Information Administration up through November 2010 indicates that the percentage of wind generated electricity in Iowa won't be near 20%. 16% will be about it. This is partly because of low wind conditions early in the year (you'd have do dig up earlier Monthly Electricity Reports from the EIA to see this), and partly because of a substantial (12.5%) increase in total electricity generation in Iowa. My thoughts are that the statement is best left out of the article to avoid misrepresenting actuality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aflafla1 (talk • contribs) 03:24, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Largest and tallest wind turbines used in USA
Which are the largest and tallest wind turbines used in USA? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.46.173.186 (talk) 12:36, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

There are NO mwHOURS listed!
It is not enough to show "capacity" and then "% of the wind energy" per state. You need the MWhrs generated or the numbers are irrelelant. Capacity,with regards to wind power is, almost meaningless in you show the actual production in MHhrs. Texas, per the article, has over 10,000MWs of *capacity*. Thaat "10,0000MWs" actually generated exactly how much on average? A 1,0000 coal plant generates 22,0000 MWhours a day (based on a 90% *acutal* capacity FACTOR). A nuclear plant...slightly more. What does this same amount of wind power get you? 8,000 MWhours? Less, more?

20:42, 6 May 2011 (UTC)DavidMIA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.81.228.221 (talk)


 * I notice that the opening paragraph says "This amounted to 94,650 thousand megawatt-hours of electricity," and more info on the US as a whole can be found at Wind power by country. You may find additional material on particular states in the relevant state sub-articles. Johnfos (talk) 02:41, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * One of the nicest things about Wikipedia is that if you don't find what you need in the article you can back track the refs and citations and often find the information that you seek and if you add it to the article, you have just made a successful and meaningful contribution.Tirronan (talk) 16:03, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Johnfos, the poster was talking about state level statistics, not national level. This information is not, to my knowledge, readily available on the web. In fact, to get the percentage of electricity generated by each state, you have to calculate it your self from data available in a Energy Information Administration database. During 1 month of the year, the Monthy Energy report has numbers showing the amount of wind generated electricty and the total amount of generated electricty for each state for the year. From this you can calculate the percentage of wind generated electricity for any state.  If you don't happen to grab this data during that month, you're going to need a fair amount of programming skills to pull the required data out of the EIA's database and generate the numbers you need.  BTW, I do have the numbers from the EIA Monthy Energy Report that would allow me to calculate the state percentages for 2010, if anyone would like them in the article. --Aflafla1 (talk) 03:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Nameplate capacity is not entirely meaningless for a wind farm. Most of them experience capacity factors in the 20% to 30% range, with a few favorable sites exceeding 40% or even 50%. However, it would be nice to have some annual generation numbers. These can change from year to year for wind farms and for hydroelectric plants. The annual variation from hydroelectric plants can be very large, due to dry and wet years - for example Hoover Dam's generation has varied from 10.348 TWh in 1984, to 2.648 TWh in 1956. --Teratornis (talk) 18:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Would a graph such as (this)the one at the bottom of the comments be a useful addition to the article. Note that the data for the full year of 2011 won't be out for another month and a half. This just shows data through November.--Aflafla1 (talk) 02:13, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, it would be possible to graph by state wind capacity per capita (kw/person), or wind capacity per area (kW/hA). These values are available for european countries which could provide a comparison. (Denmark has installed capacity of .625 kW/capita, Wyoming's is 2.5kW/capita.) --Aflafla1 (talk) 04:58, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

potential WSJ resource
Wildlife Slows Wind Power; New U.S. Rules to Protect Bats and Birds Create Uncertainty in Growing Industry by Ryan Tracy, excerpt ... 99.181.141.143 (talk) 01:08, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Might be relevant to add as a reference to the existing discussion in Environmental effects of wind power. --Teratornis (talk) 18:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

AWEA projects database moved behind paywall, many links broken
The American Wind Energy Association previously published its wind power projects database at links like these:


 * http://www.awea.org/projects/Projects.aspx?s=Ohio

The AWEA then moved its projects database behind a paywall and all those external links have broken. The old project data is still available to the public at links such as:


 * http://archive.awea.org/projects/Projects.aspx?s=Ohio

Special:LinkSearch shows 89 links to the old projects pages from Wikipedia articles. I will be updating these links to the new URLs and archiving the new links in WebCite so they do not break again (see Link rot). If anyone wants to help, feel free. However, going forward these project data pages will not show wind farms built or decommissioned after 2010, so we must find new sources.

I might add that in general a lot of Wikipedia's external links will rot, so it is good to archive them with WebCite or another archiving service. --Teratornis (talk) 18:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

NYT resource

 * Energy Tax Breaks Proposed, Despite Waning Support for Subsidies by Diane Cardwell, published January 26, 2012. 99.190.87.151 (talk) 00:52, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Regarding U.S. production numbers in lead
Full year data is included in the header because it allows production from other countries to be compared to the U.S. In addition, partial year data is not representative of full years production because of seasonal wind variations. Specifically, in the U.S. wind power production is disproportionately large during the first four or five months of the year, and disproportionately small during July, August, and September. Wind power has reached 4% of generated electricity in at least one month this year, but statistically over the course of the entire year, wind power will likely not exceed 3.4% of production. The inclusion of partial year production data in the lead section is therefore P.O.V., and thus needs to be reverted.

Because wind strength varies seasonally, and this seasonal variation is different from location to location, partial year data from one location cannot be compared to partial year data from another location, even for the same time frame. The value of partial year production data is quite inferior to a full years data, even if it is more recent. --Aflafla1 (talk) 02:02, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

The July 2012 Report is out with information from May. Table 1.1A has a breakdown per year of wind power use for each month and year of data including a rolling 12 month total. There is no need to use 2011 full year data when we have 12 months of consecutive data up to May. If you want a full year, there it is. We'll just keep using the source http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/pdf/epm.pdf. The current totals are 129.4 TWh which is 3.17% of the total of 4,076 TWh produced. Good day! 99.1.34.6 (talk) 14:48, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Your math is correct for 3.17 99.1.34.6 (talk) 15:29, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Citation needed explanation
The article is about Wind Power in the U.S. The section I edited is "Siting considerations." I removed both papers that were at the end of the section and left a "Citation needed" tag because neither link was relevant to the topic at hand. "'Some people may still object to wind farms, but their concerns should be weighed against the need to address the threats posed by climate change and fossil fuel depletion, the need for energy security, and the opinions of the broader community.'" Ellin Beltz (talk) 00:09, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The first removed link was to an opinion paper from Australia. Notice this page is about Wind Power in the United States, therefore papers about Australian wind farms and their environment are not relevant to the page topic.
 * The second led to a wind turbine manufacturer's main page, not to the paper cited in the now uncited sentence:

Recentism
The article seems to start in 2005. I doesn't mention any background at all, including obvious historical events, such as the Californian "wind rush" of the early 1980s when state support caused a rapid growth of wind power in that state.

Growth of wind power in the United States is also as bad.Oranjblud (talk) 15:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Have brought in some material from History of wind power, and removed tag. Johnfos (talk) 09:34, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Scientific American article seems to contradict US being #2
The EU has 50 times the stated capacity of the US. This at least merits mention when touting US capacity. Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Germany claims Germany in 2011 had more than 10x current US capacity.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=eu-wind-capacity-hits-100-gigawatt — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mgm7734 (talk • contribs) 21:10, 27 September 2012 (UTC)


 * No, it does not contradict the U.S. being #2. The E.U. is not a country, remember. The claim in the Germany article must have been vandalism. It's no longer there in any case. And at 100 GW the E.U. has just under twice as much capacity as the U.S., not 50 times as much. --71.214.222.30 (talk) 02:23, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

United States fiscal cliff discussion
Dear Fellow Editors: How about adding a discussion under Other governement involvment about the expiring 2.2 cent tax credit and the affect on the wind power industry? It is part of the tax credits expiring December 31, 2012. Geraldshields11 (talk) 01:25, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Re: Removal of graph showing slower growth.
Basically its for this reason: The projections illustrated are a projection which ASSUMES that the incentives for wind power development which expire at the end of 2013 will not be renewed. This is not a realistic assumption. This assumption is made to show Congress or policy makers what will happen if credits aren't extended. The history of the past 10 years or so indicates that some form of incentive will be provided. Thus the estimates would be too low. Feel free to argue for re-inclusion of the graphic. My reasons and feelings for its removal aren't that strong. --Aflafla1 (talk) 03:37, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * This is a projection by a US government agency charged with studying the subject and making such projections (part, you might note, of a presidential administration that supports wind power - hardly biased against it). You are, of course, welcome to add disagreeing projections by other published and reputable sources; such additions would add depth to the article. If you could properly document the assertions you make about the assumptions behind the graph, that would also be a worthwhile addition to the article. But to censor out a projection from a WP:RS just because you disagree with it is both WP:OR and indefensible censorship. I am re-adding the graph. Plazak (talk) 13:38, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't think I expressed myself clearly. The projection is based on an assumption that is only that, an assumption. The assumption itself is not what is really is expected to happen. This assumption is that wind power incentives will not be continued.  This is done so that policy makers have a baseline to compare their actual policy to what would have happened if the policy had not been implemented.  It's like a weather forecast based on the assumption that you live in city A (vs city B), when in fact there's a 3/4 chance you live in city B.  Regardless, I'm not re-deleting the section and I hope that readers do not expect that what's depicted on the graph is anything close to what I expect will happen given Congress's propensity to extend the tax credits year after year.--Aflafla1 (talk) 02:23, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect Summary?
Not used to doing metric wattage conversions, but in the summary, it states "For the 2012 months the electricity produced from wind power in the United States amounted to 140,089 terawatt-hours, or 3.46% of all generated electrical energy." When I looked at the cited document (#3), table ES1.B has the unit of measure of "Thousand Megawatthours", with 140,089. Am I mistaken that "Thousand megawatt hours" is gigawatthours? Jeremy Vyska (talk) 01:53, 4 March 2013 (UTC)


 * You are correct. Someone has already corrected the article, though, to 140.089. --Aflafla1 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:28, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Offshore section getting dated
It seems that the Offshore section of the article is getting a bit rusty. I'm planning to revise this section sometime in the next several of months. One thing in particular is that the cost of offshore installations is now estimated to be 2 to 3 times that of onshore installations rather than 1.5 x. Suggestions on things to do to improve the section are welcomed. --Aflafla1 (talk) 05:01, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Wind power in the United States
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Wind power in the United States's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "EWEA 2013": From Wind power in Romania: EWEA: "Wind in power: 2012 European statistics", February 2013 From Wind power in the European Union: EWEA: "Wind in power: 2012 European statistics", February 2013 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 13:05, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Sentence about the EU in lead paragraph
The article's lead paragraph includes the sentence:


 * "The EU wind industry has had an average annual growth of 15.6% over the last 17 years (1995-2011).[3]"

While an interesting fact, it is out of place in this article, especially in the lead. We are not told if the cited EU annual growth is larger or smaller than growth of wind power in the US over the same period. Unless this statistic is stated in the context of a comparison to growth of US wind power, I don't see the purpose of including it. Plazak (talk) 04:29, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Agreed. In fact the whole lead section needs a lot of work.  I'll try to get to it later this month if no one else manages to before then. --Aflafla1 (talk) 19:09, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

March 17, 2015 update
The update looks good except they took out the monthly generation data for 2002 and 2003 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Renewablejunkie (talk • contribs) 05:41, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Removal of paragraph about U. of Utah report from lead
I had several problems with the paragraph as it was in this article. First it did not belong in the lead section. Instead the info should have been placed at the end of the Overview section where it would flow more naturally.

Secondly I don't like how the paragraph was worded. Instead, write a paragraph about the wind cost estimates being too high and use the report as the cite.

Thirdly, it has been widely discussed that this report was essentially funded by oil and gas industry interests. Professor Simmons' chair at the Utah university is funded by a Koch Brothers foundation.--Aflafla1 (talk) 03:01, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

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Edits concerning wind energy subsidies
The following text has been repeatedly added by user Vgy7ujm

The U.S. Department of Energy also reported that, for fiscal year 2013, wind power in the United States received $5.936 billion in federal subsidies and supports, or 37% of all subsidies and supports for electricity production. This figure does not include state and local spending.

and has been repeadedly removed with the reason given as:

This number was not true when it first appeared and it still isn't true. 5billion/37billion is not 40%. Additionally, over 90% of this amount was due to a ARRA, and wasn't ongoing. This does not need to be put as some kind of ananchrnous counterpoint.


 * Added Jan 21,2016, removed Jan 21, 2016
 * Added Nov. 10, 2015, removed 25 Dec, 2015
 * Added Oct. 24, 2013 and removed Oct 30, 2013

--Aflafla1 (talk) 01:53, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I primarily object to two things 1)The information being in the lead instead of the body of the article, and 2)the tone of the addition, which is POV. The 37% number is correct for direct subsidies, though.

The topic of the federal Production Tax Credit and Investment tax credit received by wind is a very notable omission from the article. I've been considering adding a section on this for some time, and consolidating what sparse information is in the article regarding the PTC into the section. It needs to be mentioned that the amount of the credit reached like $24 / megawatt hour, which is considerable, especially in light that wholesale prices of electricity average like $55 - $60 / megawatt hour in the central region of the U.S. Also should mention that wind farm construction would stop when the credit expired because developers thought it reasonably likely the credit would be reinstated, and delaying the development of a wind farm until the subsidy was again in effect was a wise business decision. Aflafla1 (talk) 03:45, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I have moved this topic into the body of the article and added a mention of the ARRA. The EIA report goes into considerable detail about how the ARRA and PTC affected the report. When the EIA issues its next report on subsidies in a few years, the ARRA can be left behind, but this article needs some information about subsidies so that taxpayers realize how much of their money has gone into windfarms. It must also be made clear that the figures are limited to federal supports. As for tone, the entire article has a pro-wind POV. It lacks a balanced view about the cost effectiveness of wind power.Vgy7ujm (talk) 07:31, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

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