U.S. installed wind capacity additions in the first three quarters of 2014 have totaled less than 2 GW, but the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says project developers have reported to the agency an additional 3 GW of expected installed capacity for the fourth quarter.
That cumulative 5 GW or so for 2014 would easily surpass the 1.08 GW installed for all of 2013 but still be much lower than the 13.1 GW installed in the record-breaking year of 2012. In a report, the EIA says the drop last year was mainly the result of uncertainty caused by the last-minute extension in January 2013 of the wind production tax credit (PTC).
Furthermore, the agency says that because of timing, the newly passed one-year retroactive PTC extension is unlikely to spur significant additional wind development activity beyond what installers had already planned.
Notably, though, the EIA says developers have also reported an additional 11 GW of wind projects with expected completion dates in 2015, primarily in states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota.
