Wind Could Power 35 Percent of U.S. Electricity by 2050

Wind power in the U.S. has grown significantly over the last decade, with Americans using three times as much wind power as seven years ago and wind now provides about 4.5 percent of the nation’s electricity.

The U.S. Department of Energy believes those numbers can grow a lot more, projecting that  wind turbines could supply as much as 35 percent of U.S. electricity by 2050.

That is the conclusion of a new report released Thursday by the DOE.  Wind Vision: A New Era for Wind Power in the United States, draws a roadmap for how carbon-free wind power can become one of America’s leading sources of energy as the country looks for ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change.

The report, touted by the Obama administration, says that up to 113 gigawatts of new wind power capacity can be installed nationwide by 2020 and up to 404 gigawatts by 2050.  That would be enough electricity to power nearly 100 million homes.

Building that much capacity over the next three decades is an ambitious but attainable goal, the report says.  It would mean a 1 percent increase in consumer electricity costs before 2030, shifting to a 2 percent cost savings by 2050 as more wind farms come online.  If wind power expands that much, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by about 14 percent.

As wind grows, investments in wind energy would reach as much as $70 billion annually by 2050, at which point the industry would support 600,000 jobs, the report says.

“Wind’s growth over the decade leading to 2014 has been driven largely by wind technology cost reductions and federal and state policy support,” the report says.

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