Projects for Wind power in the United States enjoyed a lot of unprecedented growth during last year based on figures from the AWEA (American Wind Energy Association which show that the toal capacity of wind energy grew by 39% last year.

But, the Association has pointed out the economic benefits that are associated with this fast up scaling of wind energy are being lost because the government has not been providing sufficient support to the fledging industry for turbine manufacture in the country. In their 4th quarter report, the stimulus package which was passed in January last year, saw a huge increase in the capacity as the year went on and around 10,000 MW of fresh wind power was installed which took the total wind capacity installed in America to around 35,000 MW. Encouraging news is that the 4th quarter was the best till date and close to 4,000 MW of new capacity was installed and connected to the transmission grid during this time.

Chief Executive for AWEA, Denise Bode thanked Obama’s administration for their stimulus package that accelerated growth in the country when the market was expected to come to a major stand still because of the recession. “The United States industry for wind energy shattered every record for installation in 2009, creating a lot of jobs, avoiding carbon emission and protecting the consumers,” is what she had to say.

Rapid growth of wind energy also gave evidence that the United States is transitioning away from any carbon intensive fuel and the AWEA has said that natural gas and wind power are tied in the race for becoming the biggest renewable source of electricity generation and account for close to 80% of the new capacity. But, this report has warned about the support for wind farms not being as much as the support given to wind manufacturing plants. “During this time, continuing lack of long term policy’s & market signals was the reason for the total investment in manufacturing sector to fall when compared with 2008, with less than one third online, expanded and announced facilities for manufacturing wind power in 2009,” the report said. “The end result of this was that a lot of jobs were lost in the manufacturing industry which was made even more troublemsome as there were not enough orders to match the rising inventory.”

A slowdown in fresh manufacturing projects was the “canary in mine” of the industry & asked the government ensure they set high targets so that they get the stability required for the manufacturers to expand operations in the United States.

•