US utility-scale wind energy generation declined in 2023 for the first time in 25 years, giving critics such as former president Donald Trump fresh ammunition to target the sector as an unreliable electricity source as successor Joe Biden presses ahead to eliminate fossil power.
Biden has set an ambitious national 2035 goal to achieve either a carbon-free or carbon-neutral grid, which has run mainly on coal and natural gas the past century.
Renewable energy sources provided almost 23% of US electrical generation in 2023, a new record, with strong gains by solar offsetting the weaker results from wind, biomass, and hydro, according to new data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Total generation from utility-scale facilities was 4.18TWh, down from 4.24TWh a year earlier when renewables’ share was 22.4%.
Last year, wind provided 425.2GWh of power versus 434.3GWh in 2022, about 10% of the nation’s electricity mix, down from 10.2%, EIA’s data in Electric Power Monthly February 2024 showed. EIA is the statistics arm of the Department of Energy. By the end of Q3 last year the US had 146.7GW of onshore wind in operation, up from 144.2GW at the end of 2022.
While the production decline may not seem like much, lower wind speeds and resource availability in Texas and other parts of the country’s blustery interior negatively impacted earnings at leading asset owners such as Avangrid, EDP Renewables, and NextEra Energy.
To what extent wind resource availability and speeds were influenced by the El Niño climate pattern that warms surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean is being debated by climatologists.
Changing monthly and quarterly weather patterns are nothing new, and full-year 2023 could have been an anomaly overall. Still, with onshore wind now the biggest US source of carbon-free electricity, any time it is unavailable or weak, more fossil fuels will often have to be burned to make up the difference to meet market demand.
The Biden administration and private consultants are forecasting power demand to steadily grow in the second half of this decade and beyond on the assumption the US will accelerate electrification of its $26trn economy.
They expect onshore wind to play an increasingly important role in this process, although this is partly dependent on resolution of key development hurdles such as grid interconnection, long-haul transmission build-out, and permitting.
Openly hostile
Trump, by contrast, has for years been openly hostile to wind power which he asserts is undependable in comparison to baseload thermal power and therefore, represents poor value for taxpayers who are paying for billions of dollars in federal subsidies to develop it.
Moreover, he falsely claims wind turbines cause cancer and TV blackouts, adding they are “disgusting looking,” and “driving whales crazy” when installed offshore.
Early polls show Republican frontrunner Trump leading Biden, the most unpopular US president in 45 years, although the difference is within their margin of error in some cases, eight months before national elections.
Beyond questioning its economics, he has been less critical of solar, which has been growing faster than onshore wind. In 2023, solar produced 164.5GWh of electricity versus 143.8GWh in 2022 as developers were able to bring more projects into commercial operation as supply chain pressures eased.
Solar generated 5.6% of the nation’s electricity mix, on par with hydro, and roughly one-third of coal at 15.6%, according to EIA. At 42.4%, natural gas was the leasing power source.
