US demand for wind turbine systems is expected to increase 55 percent annually through 2018 to $18.9 billion, a nearly nine-fold increase over low 2013 sale, says reportbuyer.com
In 2013, the demand got affected by record number of sales, reaching at more than $25 billion in the previous year.
The number of new installations in 2012 nearly doubled the amount of new installed capacity in 2011 and this hike in sales was the result of the production tax credit, which was due to expire at the end of 2012.
As a result, when the production tax credit was renewed in January 2013, there were few orders with the first three quarters of 2013 seeing less than 75 MW of new wind power capacity in US.
The fourth quarter of 2013 saw a rush of installations again to take advantage of the expiring production tax credit, but the production tax credit was left to expire at the end of 2013 and there has been no attempt to renew it.
Advances in wind turbine system sales will be driven by the need for states to achieve renewable portfolio standard targets through 2018 and beyond.
The entire wind turbine systems installed in the US in 2013 was for onshore applications except for a single small-scale prototype turbine.
In addition, growth will benefit from demand for small wind turbine systems and continuing interest in developing renewable energy resources. The emerging off-shore wind industry will provide further gains.
The Northeast had the lowest amount of installed wind energy capacity in the US in 2013.
Electricity costs in the Northeast are highest, prompting the installation of renewable energy sources such as wind.
The South has a lot of available land with strong wind resources for wind farm development, analyzes the report.
The ongoing trend of constructing wind farms in the West South Central and Mountain sub-regions and delivering the electricity to neighboring states will provide further growth.
The uncertain future of the federal production tax credit and other incentives for wind energy will prevent even more sales.