National Wind Watch: Wind Energy News » US wind installations sink to zero in Q2

US wind growth has ground to a halt this year, with no new installations completed in the second quarter of 2013, figures from the American Wind Energy Association show.

The new figures are even worse than Q1’s 1.6MW of new installations, effectively just one GE 1.6MW turbine.

The next slackest period for wind power in the States was the first quarter of 2010, with 541MW of completed installations. The figure for the final quarter of 2012 was 8,380MW.

In its report, the AWEA accepted that the wind power industry ‘slowed dramatically’ in the first half of 2013, and it cited the late extension of the production tax credit (PTC) and ‘historic levels’ of installation at the end of 2012 as reasons.

But it insisted that activity was ‘picking up’ in the industry, listing as evidence more than 3,950MW of long-term power purchase agreements signed, and more than 1,300MW of self-builds announced, by utilities since January.

There was 1,280MW of wind power under construction across eight US states as of June 30.

The AWEA also said that 22 requests for proposals (RFP) have been issued so far in 2013 for wind-inclusive energy, of which 11 were wind-specific.

A number of these RFPs said the extension of the PTC had driven their timing, and in some cases a fast-track approval process had been developed to take advantage of the extension.