14 DAY TRIAL // Solar might have had a whale of a time in the United States last year, but the country's wind energy industry is not sitting in a corner crying its heart out either. On the contrary, rumor has it it's been seen walking around with a joyful skip.
Not to beat about the bush, recent information shared with the public by the United States Energy Information Administration says that this green energy source accounts for 30% of the new power generation capacity the country added over the past 5 years.
What's more, Clean Technica tells us that, last year, the output of wind farms up and running across the country's territory made up 4.13% of the United States' overall electricity production.
The same source details that this was the first time when wind power came to account for over 4% of the energy fed into the country's national grid.
Thus, in 2013, wind energy rightfully earned the title of the United States' fifth-largest electricity source.
Specialists with the Energy Information Administration estimate that, last year, wind farms across the country produced enough power to meet the demand of as many as 15.5 million households.
To put things into perspective, it must be said that this output is the equivalent of having homes in Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, and Ohio all run entirely on this green energy source.
Commenting on these recent figures concerning the development of the wind power industry in the United States, Elizabeth Salerno with the American Wind Energy Association wished to stress the fact that, “Wind energy continues to make inroads as a major contributor to the US power mix.”
“The electricity generated by American wind power has more than tripled since 2008 not only due to significant growth in new wind projects but also technology innovation leading to more productive wind turbines,” the Association's Vice President of Industry Data and Analysis went on to argue.
The Energy Information Administration says that, according to data at hand, some 12,000 megawatts worth of new wind power capacity were under construction in the United States at the beginning of 2014.
This means that the country's wind industry has high chances to feed even more power into the national grid by the end of this year, and help the United States have more than 13% of its electricity demand met by renewables, as it presently is the case.
Check out the chart in the picture above to see how wind power contributed to the energy generating capacity of each state in 2013.