GE swept all before it in the US onshore wind market last year, with its turbines accounting for more than half of the record 16.45GW of new plant installed, according to latest calculations from BloombergNEF.

The American OEM bagged over 9.3GW of orders latest year, while rivals Vestas secured 5.1GW and Siemens Gamesa 1.1GW. German’s Nordex (451MW) and the US arm of Chinese wind giant Goldwind (202MW) rounded out the remainder of the total number of machines on delivery.

“The US added more wind capacity than ever before in 2020. Some 16.5GW of capacity was installed – far exceeding the previous record set in 2012,” said Oliver Metcalfe, BNEF’s head of North American wind research.

He told Recharge: "The US wind industry has shown remarkable resilience to set this record in a year also hit by the pandemic. Developers brushed off delays to add an unprecedented 11GW of wind capacity in the fourth quarter alone."

Though GE was the “big winner”, Vestas, which saw it market share sink to 31% from around 40% the year before, nonetheless set a new company record for regional orders.

“Despite such strong US activity overall, Siemens Gamesa and Nordex commissioned less capacity in 2020 than the year before,” noted Metcalfe. “This means that market share for both turbine makers dropped significantly in 2020 compared with 2019.”

He added that Chinese manufacturers continued to “struggle” to win orders in the US, with Goldwind, the only one active in the market, supplying turbines for just one commissioned project, Engie’s 202MW Las Lomas in Texas.

Texas was the “busiest state by far” for new wind installations, with 19 projects totalling 3.5GW coming online, while Iowa, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Illinois made up the top five in terms of installed fleet, altogether totting up to half of the gigawattage switched on in the country.

Offshore, the sector inched ahead with a second at-sea project, the 12MW Coastal Virginia project, nudging capacity up to 42MW.

BNEF predicts that the slow-burning offshore wind sector will catch light “rapidly” this decade to become the third largest market globally by 2030.

"The total in 2020 includes just one project. Despite a slow start, we predicts the U.S. will install almost 23GW of offshore wind by 2030.”

Wind

GE mops up over half of US 2020 wind orders as Big Three dominate: BNEF