NEW YORK: Power generated by wind, the largest source of US clean electricity, likely fell in 2023 for the first time in over two decades, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Tuesday, as difficult conditions and rising costs curbed capacity growth.
Total wind generation is expected to have fallen about 1% in 2023 to 430.24 billion kilowatt hours, the EIA said in its Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO) report. Total wind capacity reached an estimated 149.4 gigawatts in 2023, up 6% from 2022, the slowest capacity addition in a decade, it added.
“It’s certainly been a down year for wind project development in the US,” said Aaron Barr, global head of onshore wind energy research at Wood Mackenzie. Last year, project developers faced a surge in financing costs with high interest rates, inflation and supply chain challenges.
In April, wind generation briefly surpassed total…
