Just four states provided 52% of US wind energy in 2018, says a paper by the US Energy Information Administration. Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa and Kansas are not only very windy, but they also have either mandatory renewable energy requirements or voluntary goals as well as relatively cheap construction costs. Five other states—California, Illinois, Minnesota, North Dakota and Colorado—provided another 20% of total wind generation. US producers generated 275 million megawatt hours of electricity from wind power in 2018, says the federal agency. 

Tax incentives are inherently less efficient than direct federal spending at transmitting incentives to the private sector, say researchers at Columbia University, US. But new predictable, long-term tax incentives are important to enable the deployment of technologies to make the power sector more flexible and integrate significant amounts of renewable energy, they add. Support should be ramped down as technologies mature, they insist. Eligibility for America’s federal tax credit for wind energy projects expires in December 2019 and the incentive for solar will start being phased out in 2020.

The US power grid is ageing and urgently needs an update, says a report by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), Grid Vision: The Electric Highway to a 21st Century Economy. The American Society of Civil Engineers recently gave America’s electricity infrastructure a grade of only D+, highlights the report. Dozens of studies confirm that an investment in transmission will pay for itself many times over, says AWEA. Well-designed transmission projects provide consumer benefits two to four times greater than their cost, the trade group says.