Total annual U.S. electricity generation from wind energy increased from about 6 billion kilowatthours (kWh) in 2000 to about 434 billion kWh in 2022. In 2022, wind turbines were the source of about 10.3% of total U.S. utility-scale electricity generation.
A simple explanation of how wind turbines generate electric power, including a comparison of full-size and micro turbines.
Considering generating your own renewable energy with a small wind turbine? Learn more about this technology and things to consider.
Wind turbines harness the wind—a clean, free, and widely available renewable energy source—to generate electric power. This page offers a text version of the interactive animation: How a Wind Turbine Works.
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Next-Generation Wind Technology. The Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) works with industry partners to increase the performance and reliability of next-generation wind technologies while lowering the cost of wind energy.
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A wind turbine turns wind energy into electricity using the aerodynamic force from the rotor blades, which work like an airplane wing or helicopter rotor blade. When wind flows across the blade, the air pressure on one side of the blade decreases.
A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. As of 2020, hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year.