Monday, August 14, 2017

Every Wind Farm in America


The American wind energy industry is expanding very quickly. Over $143 billion has been invested in new wind energy projects in the United States in the last 10 years. You can view how the number of wind farms has grown in the USA since the 1980's on a new interactive map from the American Wind Energy Association.

The AWEA's new U.S. Wind Industry Map shows the location of every utility scale wind project in the country. The map also shows the location of all wind-related manufacturing facilities.

Each wind farm is shown on the map with a blue map marker. The size of the marker represents the wind farm's capacity. A timeline feature allows you to watch an animation of how the number of wind farms has grown since 1981. If you press play on the timeline you can watch as each wind farm is added to the map by the date of its construction.

If you zoom into coastal areas on the map you can see how little offshore wind energy production there currently is in the United States. The first offshore wind farm in the US only started operation in 2016 at Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island. There are other projects under development in wind-rich areas of the East Coast, Great Lakes and Pacific coast.


The United Kingdom currently generates a higher percentage of its electricity from offshore wind farms than any other country. You can view the output of the UK's offshore wind farms on this Offshore Wind Electricity Map.

The map shows the locations of the UK's offshore wind farms. Each wind farm is represented on the map by a scaled animated wind turbine marker. The size of the marker represents the scale of the current output from each wind farm. If you select a marker on the map you can view the name of the wind farm and its current output in megawatts.

The map sidebar shows a dashboard reading of the share of the UK's electricity currently being generated by offshore wind. If you select a marker on the map the dashboard updates to show the operator of the selected wind farm, the site capacity, the number of turbines and the type of turbines.

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