page_title: United States wind energy policy
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: United States wind energy policy / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: The Brazos Wind Farm, also known as the Green Mountain Energy Wind Farm, near Fluvanna, Texas. Note cattle grazing beneath the turbines.
context_page_description: Modern United States wind energy policy coincided with the beginning of modern wind industry of the United States, which began in the early 1980s with the arrival of utility-scale wind turbines in California at the Altamont Pass wind farm. Since then, the industry has had to endure the financial uncertainties caused by a highly fluctuating tax incentive program. Because these early wind projects were fueled by investment tax credits based on installation rather than performance, they were plagued with issues of low productivity and equipment reliability. Those investment tax credits expired in 1986, which forced investors to focus on improving the reliability and efficiency of their turbines. The 1990s saw rise to a new type of tax credit, the production tax credit, which propelled technological improvements to the wind turbine even further by encouraging investors to focus on electricity output rather than installation.
  Wind energy policy is generally directed at three categories of constituents:
  Research and Development Organizations
  Commercial/Residential Generators
  Manufacturers and Producers
  with one of two goals:
context_section_description: At the end of 2010, the installed capacity of wind power in the United States was just over 40,000 megawatts (MW), making it second in the world behind China. In 2010 Wind power accounted for 2.3% of the electricity generated in the United States. This amounted to 94,650 thousand megawatt-hours of electricity.
  Driven by state renewable energy targets, fourteen states have installed over 1,000 MW of wind capacity, and a total of 37 states now have installed at least some utility-scale wind power. Texas, with 9,728 MW of capacity, has the most installed wind power capacity of any U.S. state, followed by Iowa with 3,670 MW.  The Roscoe Wind Farm (780 MW) in Texas is the world's largest wind farm.
  Wind power is a clean, domestic, renewable resource that assists the U.S. in meeting energy, environmental, and economic challenges.  The U.S. wind industry has the potential to generate tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity. Wind projects boost local tax bases, and revitalize the economy of rural communities by providing a steady income stream to farmers with wind turbines on their land. GE Energy is the largest domestic wind turbine manufacturer.
  On the other hand, the Energy Information Administration has reported that wind power received the largest share of direct federal subsidies and support in fiscal year 2013 (the latest year for which statistics are available), accounting for 37% ($5.936 billion) of total electricity-related subsidies. Almost three-quarters of wind energy subsidies in that year were direct expenditures and largely resulted from the ARRA programs. These figures do not include subsidies and supports from other levels of government.
  There are currently 5,600 MW of projects under construction in 2011. The U.S. Department of Energy's 2011 report 20% Wind Energy by 2030 envisioned that wind power could supply 20% of all U.S. electricity, which included a contribution of 4% from offshore wind power.
caption: Brazos Wind Ranch in Texas.
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