Investments in and development of wind power in the US are very unevenly distributed. That is shown in four animated maps at Vox in their article, the stunningly lopsided growth of wind power in the US, in 4 maps. They explore why a huge swath of the country has almost no wind turbines at all.
[...] The major driver to invest in wind in many states is renewable portfolio standards, which mandate a minimum amount of electricity to come from renewable sources, like hydroelectric, wind, solar, and geothermal power plants. While federal incentives like the production tax credit, which benefits wind energy installations, apply across the country, state-level programs make a major difference on the ground.
“The states that have stronger RPSs are the places where you see renewables being deployed more actively,” said Ian Baring-Gould, a technology deployment manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “In places that don’t have RPSs, the utilities don’t have as much motivation to develop renewables.”
Take a wild guess which states don’t have RPSs
Wind speeds are not even around the country, so turbine distribution is not expected to be either. However, there is a long way to go before the turbine distribution reaches parity with the potential.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:47AM (1 child)
> they sit motionless for 10.5 months out of the year
Just out of curiosity, do you see these at all hours of the day or only (for example) in the morning when wind speeds are typically lower? Most of the turbines I've seen were really going by late afternoon as the day's solar heating brought up wind speeds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @01:18AM
I don't see them 24/day, but have seen them at all parts of the day, but the wind in my area only blows in he rest of the year is dead calm. When it does blow it's ~15ms^-1, but they are built in an area, https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data?category=residential, [energy.gov] that annually get's less than 4ms^-1. Solar is great however with an annual daily average insolation of well over 6 hours/day.