Wind capacity to boom through 2020, level off thereafter: AWEA panelists

摘要

Wind industry experts expect capacity additions to boom through 2020,but to level off between 4.3 GW and 5.7 GW a year through 2025,according to presentations made at a panel discussion Tuesday at theAmerican Wind Energy Association’s WindPower conference in Houston.The expiration of federal tax subsidies will cause the drop after2020, but Dan Shreve, Wood Mackenzie’s head of global wind research,said, “Corporate America is stepping up where federal policy is fallingdown,” which accounts for his expectations for continued capacityadditions for the years after the federal Production Tax Credit expires.In contrast, this January’s US Energy Information AdministrationAnnual Energy Outlook projected forecast utility-scale annual windcapacity additions to fall to less than 150 MW each year through 2025.Celeste Wanner, an AWEA senior Analyst, said the US has morethan 39 GW of wind capacity under construction or in advanceddevelopment stages, in addition to the 97.2 GW of capacity already inplace by the end of the first quarter of 2019. The US is on track to top100 GW of wind capacity in 2019, Wanner said.