A report on the wind power industry in the USA by Pike Research says that while the sector is continuing to grow, it won’t be at the pace prior to this year.
In 2008, U.S. wind power generation capacity sped past the 25 GW mark through the addition of over 8 GW from the year before, which was the largest individual gain of any country in the world.
But, like other industries, the global economic crisis that began late last year has created its share of challenges for the wind power sector.
Pike says the optimistic view is that this point in time presents as one of great opportunity and potential growth, through the nation’s renewable energy targets and incentives such as feed-in tariffs, renewable energy tax credits, and grants. One industry expert interviewed by Pike Research estimated there are 300 GW of wind development projects in the queue in the U.S. alone
However, the pessimists believe that while things still seem fairly solid now, the bottom won’t hit the industry until late 2009 or 2010 since there is a long lag time in shocks to the wind energy development process.
Regardless, Pike Research expects wind turbine sales in the U.S. to grow by a compound annual growth rate of 9.7% to reach an annual production volume of almost 8,000 1MW+ turbines by 2015; and overall installed capacity may reach more than 80 GW by the same year.
Read more of Pike Research’s report: Wind Energy Outlook for North America (PDF)
