page_title: Wind power in the United States
section_title: New England
hierarchical_section_title: Wind power in the United States / Offshore wind power / New England
caption_attribution_description: English: Average annual wind power distribution for Massachusetts, 50m height above ground, also showing location of existing electrical transmission lines
context_page_description: Wind power in the United States is a branch of the energy industry that has expanded quickly over the latest several years. From January through December of 2019, 300.1 terawatt-hours were generated by wind power, or 7.29% of all generated electrical energy in the United States. That same year, wind power surpassed hydroelectric power as the largest renewable energy source generated in the U.S.
  As of January 2020, the total installed wind power nameplate generating capacity in the United States was 105,583 megawatts.
  This capacity is exceeded only by China and the European Union. 1,821 MW were further installed by the end of the first quarter of 2020, increasing the total capacity to 107,443 MW.
  Thus far, wind power's largest growth in capacity was in 2012, when 11,895 MW of wind power was installed, representing 26.5% of new power capacity.
  By September of 2019, 19 states had over 1,000 MW of installed capacity with 5 states generating over half of all wind energy in the nation. Texas, with 28,843 MW of capacity, about 16.8% of the state's electricity usage, had the most installed wind power capacity of any U.S. state at the end of 2019.
context_section_description: Rhode Island and Massachusetts state officials picked Deepwater Wind to build a $1.5-billion, 385-megawatt wind farm in federal waters off Block Island. The 100-turbine project could provide 1.3 terawatt-hours (TW·h) of electric power per year – 15 percent of all electric power used in the state of Rhode Island. In 2009, Deepwater signed an agreement with National Grid to sell the power from a $200-million, 30-MW wind farm off Block Island, at an initial price of 24.4 ¢/kW·h. Construction of the Block Island Wind Farm, a five turbine project began in April 2015.
  Cape Wind started development around 2002, but faced opposition and eventually ceased before being realized. The floating VolturnUS operated in Penobscot Bay near Castine from June 2013 to November 2014. Maine Aqua Ventus intends to have two floating 6 MW turbines in operation off the coast of Monhegan Island by the end of 2020. Each turbine will be supported on a VolturnUS floating concrete hull.
caption: Massachusetts and Rhode Island have strong offshore wind resources.
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