WIND RUSH GOES INTO 2015, NON-UTILITY PPAS STILL TRENDING

Dow Chemical, Walmart, Kaiser Permanente, and Google Energy took over half of Q1 PPAs; Wind power industry touts strong growth

Devin Henry, April 30, 2015 The Hill

The U.S. wind energy industry is in the middle of a near record expansion, with over 13,600 MW of capacity in construction at 100 sites in 23 states, according to the U.S. Wind Industry First Quarter 2015 Market Report from the American Wind Energy Association. Several factors are driving the “wind rush” but the most important is probably the extensions of the 2013 and 2014 production tax credit which allowed projects to qualify by beginning construction or investment in the year and be completed in 2015 and 2016. Texas, the leading state for installed wind capacity, also leads the $23 billion expansion with 7,800 MW in construction and 110 MW of Q1’s 131 MW of completed installed capacity. The other top 5 states in the rush are Oklahoma with over 890 MW under construction, Kansas with more than 870 MW, New Mexico with 680 MW, and North Dakota with over 530 MW. There were 1,200 MW of U.S. wind energy capacity construction begun in Q1 including the U.S. wind industry’s first offshore wind project, Rhode Island’s 5 turbine, 30 MW Block Island installation. Building on a trend begun in 2014 when almost a quarter of all new PPAs came from the private sector, over half the Q1 750 MW of new power purchase agreements were from four companies: Dow Chemical (200 MW), Walmart (50 MW), Kaiser Permanente (43 MW), and Google Energy (43 MW). click here for more

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