Full Title: Land-Based Wind Market Report: 2024 Edition
Author(s): Ryan Wiser, Dev Millstein, Ben Hoen, Mark Bolinger, Will Gorman, Joe Rand, Galen Barbose, Anna Cheyette, Naïm Darghouth, Seongeun Jeong, Julie Kemp, Eric O'Shaughnessy, Ben Paulos, and Joachim Seel
Publisher(s): Berkeley Lab
Publication Date: August 22, 2024
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Wind power additions in the United States totaled 6.5 gigawatts (GW) of capacity in 2023. Wind power growth has historically been supported by the industry’s primary federal incentive—the production tax credit (PTC)—as well as numerous state-level policies. Long-term improvements in the cost and performance of wind power technologies have also been key drivers for wind additions, yielding low-priced wind energy for utility, corporate, and other power purchasers. Nonetheless, 2023 was a slow year in terms of new wind deployment, the lowest since 2014. Elevated interest rates played a role in slowing deployment, as did interconnection and siting challenges.
Passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) promises new market dynamics for wind power deployment and supply chain investments in the years ahead. IRA contains a long-term extension of the PTC at full value (assuming that wage and apprenticeship standards are met) along with opportunities for wind plants to earn two 10 percent bonus credits that add to the PTC for meeting domestic content requirements and for being in energy communities. IRA also includes new production-based and investment-based tax credits to support the build-out of domestic clean energy manufacturing and supply chains. Though it is too early to see the full impacts of IRA in historical data, IRA has increased analyst forecasts for future wind power capacity additions and has motivated many wind industry supply-chain announcements.
Key findings from this year’s Land-Based Wind Market Report—which primarily focuses on land-based, utility-scale wind—are summarized below. Note that the sections on “Installation Trends,” “Industry Trends,” and “Future Outlook” often contain combined data inclusive of both offshore and land-based wind. Other sections exclusively focus on land-based wind.