Oregon in top five for wind energy capacity
Oregon is now one of the top five states in the country for wind energy, according to the just-released annual report of the American Wind Energy Association.
Oregon pulled ahead of Minnesota in 2009 and is one of 14 states in the “gigawatt club” with more than 1,000 megawatts installed according to the association’s annual report.
According to the association, U.S. wind energy developers installed more than 10,000 megawatts of new wind power capacity in 2009, the largest year in U.S. history. That’s enough to power the equivalent of 2.4 million homes or generate as much electricity as three large nuclear power plants.
Other Oregon data points from the report include:
- • Oregon ranks No. 4 for capacity added in 2009. The state added 754 megawatts of wind capacity in 2009, according to the report, enough to power about 190,000 homes. Oregon’s total installed capacity is 1,821 megawatts.
- • Portland General Electric is the No. 3 utility in the United States for its use of wind energy.
- • Oregon gets 6 percent of its energy mix from wind — up from 4 percent at the end of 2008 — making it the No. 4 state. Wind energy provided 1.8 percent of all U.S. power in 2009. Iowa gets 14 percent of its power from wind energy.
- • The wind industry employed between 2,000 and 3,000 Oregonians in 2009. The association reports that all 50 states had some jobs in wind energy in 2009, with a total of about 85,000 people employed.
The association, like most renewable energy proponents, is advocating for a national renewable energy standard — a national requirement similar to Oregon’s which calls for 25 percent of the state’s energy supply to come from renewable sources by 2025.
“A national (renewable energy standard) will provide the long-term certainty that businesses need to invest tens of billions of dollars in new installations and manufacturing facilities which would create hundreds of thousands of American jobs,” said Denise Bode, the association’s CEO, in a news release.
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