US Onshore Wind Power Is Rebounding. This Is Why
Onshore wind, unlike offshore, is turning a corner as project economics improve and developers make sense of a landmark 2022 climate law.
Wind turbines at the San Gorgonio Pass wind farm in Whitewater, California.
Photographer: Bing Guan/BloombergAfter hitting its lowest point in almost a decade last year, the US onshore-wind sector is slowly spinning back to life.
Prospects are improving thanks to new tax credits and stronger demand — and as developers work to overcome a cloud of challenges including inflation, higher borrowing costs and supply-chain kinks. In 2023, those obstacles limited US onshore installations to just 7 gigawatts, according to BloombergNEF, down from a peak of 17 gigawatts in 2020 and the smallest amount of new wind energy built on US soil since 2014. The same issues continue to thwart the fledgling, though higher profile, offshore wind industry.