U.S. Added 2,000 Wind Turbines in 2017—AI Would Add 2,200 More Today

The American Wind Energy Association’s new report on the U.S. wind market says the U.S. added around 2,000 wind turbines last year.  What if the U.S. could add another 2,200 turbines’ worth of clean energy without putting a single turbine in the ground?

The good news:  We can.  We just need to take advantage of data and AI to keep turbines from breaking down.  If we eliminate avoidable downtime, the U.S. could add the equivalent of 2,200 turbines, or 12 terawatt hours of clean energy, without installing another wind turbine.  That’s enough to power every home in Chicago for a year.

Earlier this year, in our Untapped Energy report, we analyzed the opportunity for the U.S. wind energy industry to produce more energy.  The wind fleet is currently at 94 percent availability, but the numbers above show the immense impact we could have by increasing it to 99 percent.  Each one percent we increase availability is equal to adding 450 new wind turbines, which could power 222,000 homes annually.

New artificial intelligence technology is creating more energy from the same wind.  Berkshire Hathaway Energy is doing this in Iowa with its wind farms.

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