15 June is Global Wind Day, a time to wrap your arms around your favorite wind turbine–well, at least part way. Not to be confused with National Windmill Day on the second Saturday of May, Global Wind Day is to celebrate how far we’ve come with modern wind energy. It’s been a long slog, but wind is part of the energy picture once again throughout the world.
This year the industry will install as much as a whopping 100,000 MW of new wind capacity, bringing the total to a once unimaginable 1 TW of generating capacity. Conservatively that’s enough to generate 2,000 TWh of electricity, likely much more.
How much is that? Glad you asked. The USA consumed 4,000 TWh of electricity last year. So if all those wind turbines were located here, they would be producing 50% of the country’s electricity.
Wow. Wind energy has truly come of age.
