Wind power in the United States
The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2008 report "20% Wind Energy by 2030" envisioned that wind power could supply 20% of all U.S. electric power, which included a contribution of 4% to the nation’s total electric power from offshore wind power. In order to achieve this, however, significant advances in cost, performance and reliability are needed, based on a 2011 report from a coalition of researchers from universities, industry, and government, supported by the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. Obtaining 20% from wind requires about 305 GW of wind turbines, an increase of 16 GW/year after 2018, or an average increase of 14.6%/year, and transmission line improvements. Analysts estimate around 25 GW of added US wind power in 2016-18, depending on the Clean Power Plan and PTC extensions. After the current PTC phase-out in 2021, additional wind power capacity is expected to be around 5 GW per year.
In 2015, electric power generation from wind power was 10 percent or more in twelve U.S. states: Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, and South Dakota, Vermont, and Texas.
Iowa, South Dakota, and Kansas each had more than 20 percent of their electric power generation come from wind. Twenty states now have more than five percent of their generation coming from wind.
Wind power in the United States
A 2012 report by a clean energy consulting group concluded that new wind farms can produce electric power in the 5-8 cents per kWh range, making wind power cost-competitive with fossil fuels in many areas. As of 2013, the US Energy Information Administration estimates the "levelized cost" of wind energy from new installations as 7 to 10 cents per kWh, depending on the geographic area, but cautioned that levelized costs of non-dispatchable sources such as wind should be compared to the avoided energy cost rather than the levelized cost of dispatchable sources such as natural gas, or baseload sources such as coal or geothermal. In 2015, a Koch-funded institute of Utah State University stated that the cost of wind energy is higher than most cost estimates calculate. Renewable portfolio standards require renewable energy to exist (most of them intermittent such as wind and solar), but at the expense of utilities and consumers.
The production tax credit makes wind power cheaper for utilities and consumers, but at the expense of taxpayers. The American Wind Energy Association has criticized the study of lacking comparison with pollution and subsidies incurred by other electric power sources, and for counting transmission as a cost rather than a benefit.