Small Wind Turbine Market Sees Strong Growth (2010 Market Growth Report)

October 22nd, 2011 by Zachary Shahan

I published preliminary stats on the American Wind Energy Association’s 2011 report on small wind turbine growth about a month ago. The official release of the study results is now out. Here’s AWEA’s news release on it (much more information and many graphs are included at the link on the bottom):

AWEA U.S. Small Wind Turbine Market Report: more homes, farms, schools and businesses using wind power

America’s small wind turbine industry saw substantial growth in 2010, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) reported [this week], highlighted by a 26 percent expansion in the market for small wind systems with 25.6 megawatts (MW) of capacity added, as well as a robust increase in sales revenue. Nearly 8,000 small wind units were sold last year, totaling $139 million in sales.

“Across the country people are saving money and helping the environment by using small wind turbines to power their homes, farms and businesses” said Larry Flowers, AWEA Deputy Director of Distributed and Community Wind. “This report shows that the market for clean, affordable, homegrown wind energy is as good in small scale applications as it is for large utilities.”

Small wind turbines are defined as those that are 100 kilowatts and under. The U.S. small wind industry represents an estimated 1,500 full-time equivalent jobs. Small wind turbines manufactured in North America typically incorporated 80-percent domestic content.

With small wind scaling up during the last few years, its benefits are becoming more noticeable. Growth in 2010 pushed cumulative sales in the U.S. to an estimated 179 MW of capacity—a total that reaches well into the range of many utility-scale wind farms. As a result, small wind is having a positive impact on the environment, as installations now annually displace 161,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. That is the equivalent of taking 28,000 cars off the road.

Small wind’s 2010 growth was supported by sound policy at the federal, state, and local levels. Those policies enabled more than $30 million in rebates, tax credits, and grants to go to small wind purchasers, users, and others. Though more than 30 states offered small wind incentives and grants, a long-term and consistent federal policy is crucial to the growth of the country’s small wind industry. The current Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for small wind expires at the end of 2016.

The 2010 U.S. Small Wind Market Report can be accessed at http://awea.org/learnabout/smallwind/index.cfm

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Tags: micro wind turbines, quickies, small wind, small wind turbine, small wind turbine growth, small wind turbine sales, small wind turbines

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

vasant kale narahar

what is minimum wind speed required , so the wind power become financially affordable
Pingback: 1st Small Wind Turbine Gets AWEA Certification | CleanTechnica
Ed

Zach:
If the numbers you quote are accurate they put the average cost/per @ around 17,000+ and the rebates bring that down to around 13,600. The “payback time” would be ‘daunting’ to say the least. Hopefully, those costs will come down so that the average home owner would find the option more attractive.
Ed
- Anonymous
  
  I just don’t see home owner wind turbines being a good expenditure of money. The good, clean wind is up high and when it comes to turbines it’s almost always the case that bigger is better.
  
  Distributed (rooftop) solar makes a lot of sense to me. Small turbine distributed wind doesn’t.
  
  What I’d like to see is a wind farm where individuals could own a piece. Someone living in an apartment who would like to purchase their EV power for the next few decades could buy shares in a wind farm just like people can buy into a community solar farm. Put your money where the wind blows hard and generate a lot more power per dollar.
http://www.alt-energy.info Mb-bigb

while kw and sales revenue showed healthy increases, the number of units sold has actually decreased for 2 years running – from over 10,300 in 2008, to 9800 in 2009, to 7800 in 2010. I guess the turbines being sold are more powerful on average (and probably cost more too), but it would be nice to see the number of turbines being sold increasing on a year by year basis. Or maybe I’m misinterpreting the graph?
- Anonymous
  
  I think the reason units are down and kilowatts are up in charts is the cost of small wind compared to solar.
  
  Solar PV has decreased the cost per watt during the years shown in the charts; however, the cost of small wind (sadly) has increased per watt over the same period of time :-(.