Wind Industry Closes Record 2020 With Strongest Quarter Ever
WASHINGTON D.C. (Feb. 4, 2021) The U.S. wind industry had its
strongest year ever in 2020 as the amount of new wind power capacity added increased by 85 percent over 2019. The industry added 16,913 megawatts (MW) of wind power capacity to the grid in 2020 enough to power more than 5 million American homes. Most of this growth came in the fourth quarter, when developers commissioned 10,593 MW of capacity,
smashing all quarterly records. With these additions, there are now 122,478 MW of operating wind power capacity in the United States, providing enough power for 38 million American homes.
Project owners commissioned 54 new wind projects across 20 states in the fourth quarter, including two of the nation’s largest single-phase wind projects in history in New Mexico and Texas. On the heels of this activity, another 34,757 MW of wind projects are either under construction or in advanced development. Direct utility ow
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Vineyard Wind 1 (dark blue at center) would be the first offshore wind energy project among several planned on federal leases south of Martha s Vineyard and Nantucket. BOEM image.
A top New York energy and environment official who worked on her state’s drive for offshore wind energy, now director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, announced Wednesday the federal agency is resuming its environmental review of the Vineyard Wind project.
“Offshore wind has the potential to help our nation combat climate change, improve resilience through reliable power, and spur economic development to create good-paying jobs,” Amanda Lefton, formerly first assistant secretary for energy and environment in New York State. “BOEM is committed to conducting a robust and timely review of the proposed project.”
Recharge.
The role at BOEM, which will oversee the administration’s planned launch of US commercial-scale offshore wind on a robust growth path this decade, does not require confirmation by the US Senate.
Walter Cruickshank, present acting and deputy director of BOEM, will continue as deputy director, a position he has held since the agency was created in October 2011.
Lefton has served as first secretary for energy and the environment for New York state governor Andrew Cuomo since January 2019. Prior to that, she was deputy policy director for seven years at the New York chapter of the Nature Conservancy, a leading national environmental group.
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Federal regulators must tackle interregional transmission planning in order to maximize the capacity of wind and solar power on the U.S. power grid, a bipartisan group of former Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioners and Chairs agreed on Wednesday.
Their consensus follows the release of a comprehensive report released from the nonprofit transmission advocacy group Americans for a Clean Energy Grid (ACEG) that calls for robust interregional planning in order to widen access to cheap renewable energy resources, as well as improve the overall resilience and reliability of the grid. The report calls for more than just a system upgrade it asks for a comprehensive overhaul of the current utility-by-utility piecemeal transmission buildout.
President Biden’s initiatives on renewable energy may reflect a turning point in the climate debate. Instagram @gretathunberg via REUTERS
Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg appears in a December 11 social media post, marking five years since the Paris Agreement COP21 conference.
Loading. By the Monitor s Editorial Board
For more than 30 years, the global conversation on climate change has been trapped between opposing fears. On one side, scientists warned of dangers from a warming atmosphere and rising seas caused by human activity. On the other, consumers, politicians, and business leaders have feared disruption to an economy long reliant on fossil fuels. From one climate summit to another, leaders set targets that have largely not been met. Mutual fears created stalemate.