U.S. Wind Power Is ‘Going All Out’ with Bigger Tech, Falling Prices, Reports Show

New technology is allowing for bigger, more efficient wind turbines that make wind energy possible even in areas with lower wind speeds. Credit: Scott Bryant Photography/NREL Wind power capacity has tripled across the United States in just the last decade as prices have plunged and the technology has become more muscular, the federal government’s energy labs report. Three new reports released Thursday on the state of U.S. wind power show how the industry is expanding onshore with bigger, more powerful turbines that make wind energy possible even in areas with lower wind speeds. Offshore, the reports describe a wind industry poised for a market breakthrough. Inside the future of energy. "Right now it’s going full bore," said Mark Bolinger, a research scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and co-author of one of the new reports . "The industry is really going all out." Some of the key findings: The country’s wind energy capacity has tripled since 2008, reaching 88,973 megawatts by the end of 2017. Wind contributed 6.3 percent of the nation’s energy supply last year. The average price of wind power sales agreements is now about 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, down from a high of 9 cents […]

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