Wind power: America's future?
Generation from wind turbines in the United States increased 27% in 2011 from the prior year, and is up 350% since 2006.
“During the past five years capacity additions of wind turbines were the main driver of the growth in wind power output,” the U.S. Department of Energy reported. “As the amount of wind generation increases, electric power system operators have faced challenges with integrating increasing amounts of this intermittent generation source into their systems.”
Wind is currently the largest source of non-hydro renewable electricity in the U.S.
As the amount of wind generation increases, operators have faced challenges integrating the increasing amounts of this intermittent generation source into their systems.
“Wind energy is the largest source of non-hydroelectric renewable electricity in the United States, contributing 61% of the nearly 200 terawatthours of non-hydroelectric renewable generation in 2011,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
However, wind power still only accounted for less than 3% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2011.
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