FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 9, 2017

Durango, CO, August 9, 2017 – Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) released the 2016 Distributed Wind Market Report showing growth in the domestic residential, commercial, and institutional market sectors as well as in domestic manufacturing and export markets.

“Our industry offers a reliable solution to on-site power and has found success in communicating its benefits to homeowners, businesses, and farmers,” said DWEA Executive Director Jennifer Jenkins. “We look forward to continued growth as predicted in the 2015 Distributed Wind Vision report. We’ll need the ITC extension for orphaned technologies and continued support in the states to get there.”

Flexible financing mechanisms, such as third-party financing and leasing options, continue to make distributed wind economically viable for individuals and companies by allowing installation and maintenance costs to be shared by providers.

New York-based United Wind, which offers leases to farmers and businesses to install wind turbines on their land with little to no upfront costs, and Netherlands-based EWT International, which offers power purchase agreements so companies can install large turbines at their facilities, are two DWEA member companies that offer successful third-party ownership models.

“Property owners in “wind rich” markets throughout rural America love the wind leasing product we offer,” said Russell Tencer, CEO of United Wind. “With early majority minded consumers now starting to adopt at higher rates, we anticipate year-over-year bookings to increase by more than 200% in 2017.”

Key findings of the report, courtesy of PNNL, include:

 The nation’s cumulative distributed wind power capacity is about 1 percent of all U.S. wind power capacity, or enough to power roughly 265,000 typical U.S. homes annually.
 27 states are home to companies that manufacture components for distributed wind turbines.
 Six U.S. manufacturers exported 10.3 megawatts in distributed wind turbines with an estimated value of $62 million.
 45.4 megawatts of distributed wind power was added in 25 U.S. states and the U.S. territory of Guam in 2016.
 The nation has added a total 992 megawatts of distributed wind in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands between 2003 and 2016.
 Institutional customers, such as utilities, churches and schools, accounted for 29 megawatts of the new distributed wind power installed in 2016.
 New York led the nation by installing a quarter, or 627 kilowatts, of new small wind power capacity in 2016.

For more information about the 2016 Distributed Wind Market Report, and other distributed wind updates, visit DWEA’s website. For more information about PNNL’s wind power research, visit PNNL’s wind website.

About the Distributed Wind Energy Association: The Distributed Wind Energy Association is a collaborative group comprised of manufacturers, distributors, project developers, dealers, installers, and advocates, whose primary mission is to promote and foster all aspects of the American distributed wind energy industry. Distributed wind, commonly referred to as small and community wind, is the use of typically smaller wind turbines at homes, farms, businesses, and public facilities to off-set all or a portion of on-site energy consumption. DWEA seeks to represent members and associates from all sectors with relevant interests pertaining to the distributed wind industry. For more information on DWEA, please go to www.distributedwind.org. Follow us on Twitter @DWEA and like us on Facebook.

For more information:
Jennifer Jenkins, DWEA Executive Director
jjenkins@distributedwind.org, 928-380-6012